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Knowing Jesus Christ
and Making Him Known
What is the Healing Ministry of the Church?
In the science fiction movie “Fantastic Voyage,” they keep looking for the soul of the person. They did not find it, because humans do not have a soul. Man is a soul – a person made up of body, mind, and spirit – “all of me.”
The healing ministry constantly emphasizes our totality in the need for healing. The various facets or aspects of the soul (body, mind, and spirit) are interdependent, and the illness of any one part can affect all the other parts.
There is much misunderstanding about the healing ministry. It’s important to understand what spiritual healing is not.
It is
NOT:
… a substitute for the
doctor.
… Christian Science.
… just positive thinking.
… just relief from pain.
… faith healing.
(the “faith healer” tarnishes the work of
the Holy Spirit)
…
Spiritualism.
(healing with the aid of human departed
spirits)
If this is what the healing ministry of the church is not, what is it then? The healing ministry is known by many names. “Divine Healing” describes the healing ministry well. Divine healing is the love of God that heals the soul – the “all of me” – in body, mind, and spirit. To use a phrase from Anne White: “Divine Healing is more than ‘getting well;’ it is being made whole.”
Wholeness involves relationship to Christ. Divine Healing is God’s way of dealing with a sick person in such a way as to provide wholeness. It is God’s way of dealing with the underlying causes of illness – and they are many:
Hate… Guilt… Worry… Fear… Loneliness… Depression… the need to forgive and be forgiven…the desire to remain sick.
To bring healing means to love, and love compels action. Thus, healing means giving of self and loving the unlovable. Emily Gardner Neal muses:
“If one were to search for the single attribute most characteristic of the healing ministry, I suspect that he or she would find it is love. Saying this is not to imply that Christian love is restricted to the ministry of healing, but only to affirm that love is present to an uncommon degree in people who are involved in any way with this ministry, whether they actively work in it, participate regularly in healing services as supplicants, or just believe in the healing Christ.”
As a seventeen year old boy once expressed to his pastor following a healing service, “There’s something different about the healing service, something I can feel there that I don’t feel at the regular Sunday morning service. I think it’s love.
* This page totally adapted from “Healing, a spiritual adventure” by Mary E. Peterman (a book from the LCPC library!)