HOLISTIC HEALING By Heidi Ernst


Parish nurses care for body, mind and spirit


For most of the past two centuries, healing and


faith were as intertwined as the serpent encircling the rod in the symbol for medicine. Jesus and his disciples healed not only physically but also spiritually, and their faithful model of Christian caring created the template for modern-day nursing. While nursing has always been about caring,


healing has become more institutionalized, moving out of homes and churches and into health- care facilities. But in 1984, Granger Westberg, a Lutheran parish pastor, hospital chaplain, and divinity and medical school professor, built a bridge called parish nursing. Envisioned as a partnership between health-


care systems and congregations, with the first at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill., and six churches, parish nursing now operates under many different paradigms. Paid by health-care systems, congregations or not at all; working full time, part time, or shared among congregations and/or medical facilities; working solo or with a team; serving in congregations large and small,


34 JANUARY 2017


urban and rural—ELCA parish nurses promote wholeness and wellness in a variety of ways. But their goals are the same: parish nursing


is based on Westberg’s belief that true healing involves the body, mind and spirit. Michelle Knapp, a registered nurse, heard


Westberg talk about his—in her words— “brand- new, strange idea” at Immanuel Lutheran Church in the Edgewater area of Chicago and became part of the second group of parish nurses he hired at Lutheran General. She began part time, shared with Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, but moved quickly to full time between the two. Neither church is huge, with about 100 at


worship, but the pastors were, Knapp said, “very committed to the holistic vision of health— emotional, spiritual and physical.” In her congregations, from which she retired


in December after 28 years, Knapp did what many parish nurses do: established groups for caregivers, people who are grieving and others; scheduled


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