More Resources for Healing Ministry: The Oates Institute and The Oates Journal

The Wayne Oates Institute is a resource for reading and continuing education in the areas of pastoral care and healing ministry.  Here is its mission statement:

“The Wayne Oates Institute is a learning community advancing collaborative, compassionate, and integrative care. Our membership consists of professional and lay caregivers in the fields of religion, nursing, pastoral care and counseling, medicine, social work, and therapy. We accomplish our mission through education, publication, and research and make our resources available locally, nationally, and internationally on the Internet.”

Click here for a fact sheet about this organization.
The Oates Journal is a free online professional journal that addresses issues of spirituality, ethics and health for pastoral care givers and health professionals.  Here is a link to a recent article: “Bringing the Refugees Home: Ministry with the Dechurched”, and here is a link to an archived article “Introduction to Preaching and Pastoral Care.”  You can subscribe to their newsletter to receive notifications of new articles.

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Church Health Reader: A Resource for Healing Ministry

Christ Jesus came to make us whole in every way, and he calls his church to the work of healing and wholeness.  Over the centuries, though, we have ceded much of this area of ministry to the medical community, and we fail to see that the call to heal is still ours.  Here’s a resource for all who want to answer that call.

Church Health Reader is a quarterly journal that also has a website with lots of articles and resources that you can click on.  Here’s a sample article entitled “The Church’s Call to Health Ministry.”     Print subscriptions cost $20 for one year, $30 for two years, and $40 for three years.

On the site there are free downloadable flyers with health information, and even healthy recipes for cooking in large quantity for church suppers.  You can click on book reviews, and helps for starting health ministries of various kinds in your congregation.  There is a list of must-reads before you begin a health ministry, and articles on living with diseases and conditions like cancer and depression.  Resources can also be accessed according to interest, such as worship, food, walking and running for health, clergy health, parenting, parish nursing, and recovery from addiction.

Church Health Reader also offers curriculum resources.  Walk & Talk is a Bible study and devotional that is specifically designed to be used while you walk with a friend, with a member of your congregation, or by yourself.

May the Holy Spirit move afresh among us and show us how to exercise the gift of healing in our time and place!

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