My purpose for this site is to explore what it looks like to go into health ministry. More specifically, I am exploring what it looks like to be a minister in the church who guides people to steward the resource that is their bodies in order to increase their capacity to worship with their whole selves. The thing is, I\’m not quite there yet. I haven\’t even really started. So I am trying to write in such a way as to challenge myself to figure this out with intention and maybe also find some help along the way. But today, I thought I would start with how this desire got started. Somewhere in the next few entries, I\’ll also go into why I\’m starting this now, but for this entry, let\’s backpedal a bit.
The Beginning…
I currently work in an outpatient setting, but before that, I worked in the hospital for a few years. This is when the desire to go into health ministry started to itch in my brain. I worked on a Medical-Surgical (think of it as a general medical floor) unit with Oncology, Cardiology, and Hospice patients. We had a lot of variety in our patient population.
What struck me about many of the patients I worked with was that so many of them were laid out in the hospital with preventable diseases or due to complications that were worsened by having preventable diseases. Diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, all of these conditions and more led to diminished quality AND quantity of life, and I despaired to think that my job was just to keep people alive, not help them have more life. Oh, there would be chances here and there to do education on how to do some lifestyle changes that might help, but I wasn\’t quite in the right setting to help people do that over the long run.
As I mulled over this, I was also part of the leadership team at my church. Something you should know about me from that time: I loved my church. Like, if the church elders told me I could live there as the janitor and I could just eat the leftover Sunday lunches to survive for the rest of the week, I would have, and with a level of enthusiasm that would have raised your eyebrows. Church fed me, and not just with leftovers (though those were great too). The people there embodied Jesus to me in a way that still lingers in the way I talk, write, think, and feel my way through the world.
Over the next several months, an idea grew. I felt as though working at the hospital, though incredibly rewarding and necessary, could not be where I focused my energies for the long run. For one thing, although I grew into my professional self in a lot of ways, I still felt like it wasn\’t quite where I belonged, as though my skills didn\’t quite match the setting. But mainly, I could not shake the sense that there had to be more. And I also wanted to find a way to marry my love of the church and my relationship with Jesus with my vocation.
Groundhog Day
I\’ve had my share of unpleasant patient interactions. I\’ve been yelled at, scratched at, and argued with. I hate conflict, but it became easier to deal with as I imagined a certain level of professional distance during those conversations. However, there is one patient interaction that almost led to tears, and the experience still rankles me.
This patient had bilateral below the knee amputations as a complication from his diabetes. In addition, he also had a moderate level of dementia, again a complication. And he was mean. No physical abuse, but he regularly name-called and made life difficult for the nurses. There was even one instance where (and I don\’t completely remember why) I had to call in other staff members to help me with something, and his sheer unpleasantness almost made me cry in front of all of them.
I had a conversation with one of his family members on the phone about his care and found out that he had very few family who would keep in contact with him because of his history of abusiveness. And it made me realize something. This man would never, ever be able to improve his situation. He had dementia. He would not remember long enough to change anything. He was stuck. It was Groundhog Day with no redemption (If you don\’t know what Groundhog day is, please Google \”Groundhog Day\” and \”Bill Murray\” and then don\’t tell me you didn\’t know what it was because I\’ll be sad, thank you.)
Moments like these made me realize I wanted to get to people before they got to this point. This man needed healing in so many ways. How do I help people before they got here? Of course, there will always be people who get there for no discernible lifestyle-related reason. But for those that could, and even for those who aren\’t sure they could, was there something I could do? And even more specifically, if the church is meant to represent to the world what it looks like to worship God faithfully in all aspects of life, how could I work within the church to help its members in this particular arena?
Since then, I have sporadically looked in to different types of health ministry, and very, very slowly, my knowledge has grown. I\’ve shadowed a few nurses who work in this capacity. I\’ve joined a Christian nursing group, I\’ve done one or two ministry and health related events, but nothing all that substantial. In educating myself, I have tried to gather resources, find potential connections, and slowly try out a few things.
I\’m not much of a risk taker. I value security and harmony in my surroundings. But for some reason, it feels like a good time to take some risks, even if I can only take the smalls ones for now. This blog is one of those risks. So, I pray that regardless of where this ends up, the experience of taking risks, looking for more, and thoughtfully looking for where this leads will at least show me the beauty of Jesus in a fresher, fuller light.