| Parish nurses care for body and spirit
By Michael Wacht
DELTONA — The more than 150 parish nurses in
the Florida Conference take seriously Jesus’ teaching that the body
is a temple. “The bottom line is the spiritual dimension,” Ginny
Pearcy said. “Our bodies are where the Holy Spirit lives, and if we’re
not healthy, we can’t get around and be in ministry.”
Pearcy is a registered nurse who is serving as
parish nurse at First United Methodist Church, Deltona, where her
husband, Robert, is pastor. She is also a member of the Florida
Conference’s Health and Wholeness team.
Pearcy said a team of conference parish nurses
is visioning ways to further expand its ministry within the
conference, especially to help clergy stay healthy.
Pearcy said parish nursing can trace its roots
back to the apostolic church of the New Testament. “At the time of
the early church, the apostles were so busy preaching the gospel of
Jesus they ran out of time to care for the sick,” she said. “The
deacons and deaconesses were the ones who took care of the whole
person…and were involved in healing ministries.”
Modern parish nursing began in the 1980s, Pearcy
said, adding the nurses’ primary charge was to “teach primary
prevention of diseases in the context of a faith community.”
Primary prevention is proactively caring for one’s
own health in order to prevent illness, rather than waiting for an
illness or disease to be diagnosed, then treating it, according to
Pearcy.
Parish nursing came to Florida when Orlando’s
Florida Hospital began teaching a parish nursing orientation course in
1994. Now, at least five other institutions offer the full Parish
Nursing Endorsed Curriculum. The weeklong course teaches nurses the
philosophy of parish nursing, the core of which is to “treat the
person as a whole person with physical, spiritual, emotional and
relational concerns,” Pearcy said.
Parish nurses care for people through
visitation, education, advocacy and faith sharing. Nurses visit people
who are ill or hospitalized and spend time with their families. They
teach people how to better care for themselves. Advocacy can be
driving someone to the doctor’s office, helping patients understand
their diagnosis or insurance coverage, and providing referrals.
Faith sharing ties the elements together, Pearcy
said, adding “everything is done in the context of our faith in God.”
Pearcy said the Florida Conference parish
nursing ministry has grown because the nation’s health care system
has caused a greater need for help and information, but is providing
less of both. People are also more health conscious.
“Clergy embrace the idea of having a health
and wholeness community in the church,” Pearcy said. “…There’s
a lot you [a parish nurse] can do that clergy can’t because they don’t
look at things with medical eyes.”
The clergy, themselves, are also a focus of the
parish nursing program.
“Pastors and clergy are some of the most
over-stressed and under-exercised people in our population,” she
said. “They are prime targets for illness, and most of it is stress
related.”
With that in mind the parish nurses are
coordinating a health exposition for clergy at the 2003 Florida Annual
Conference Event. The team has already found about 25 participants who
will do blood pressure checks and blood analysis. The Bloodmobile will
also be there, Pearcy said.
Pearcy said she is also looking for new ways to
educate United Methodist congregations about parish nursing. She and
her husband have already made presentations to more than 30 churches.
“It helps for pastors to hear a pastor’s
perspective,” she said.
Pearcy is also working on a video featuring
parish nurses working at local churches.
For more information on Florida Conference
parish nursing contact Pearcy at 386-789-3551 or rpearcy@cfl.rr.com
or access information available under the Health and Wholeness link on
the Florida Conference’s Web site, http://www.flumc.org/parishnurse/parishnurse.htm
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