Healing Resources

Growing a Healing Ministry

This is a five session course written by Acorn staff and is designed for small groups in the local church. The course will give biblical and practical guidance on how to grow and develop a healing ministry in your church. Each session is interactive and practical.

Session Titles are as follows:

Session 1: SEEDS OF FAITH
This session is an introduction to the healing ministry and enables the group members to discover the breadth of God's healing, and excite them about the fact that God heals today and they can be involved in this ministry.

Session 2: RICH SOIL FOR GROWTH
This looks at the basic principles and attitudes that are necessary for sound pastoral care in the healing ministry, and shows how Christian listening is an excellent foundation for healing.

Session 3: LEAVES FOR HEALING
With the use of case studies this session looks at the different ways we can receive healing. It also explores who we can offer care to for those who don't receive obvious cure in the healing ministry.

Session 4: GROWING A HEALING CHURCH
This session helps the group to think of how their church can live as a healing community, and to show how the gifts and abilities of every member of the church are required for a fruitful healing ministry.

Session 5: FRUIT ABUNDANT
This is a highly practical session that helps church groups apply what they have been learning in the course.

'Growing a Healing Ministry' can be obtained from Whitehill Chase. Cost £10.00 plus £2.50 p&p or through the online bookshop.



In Search of Wholeness
St John’s Extension Studies, 2003 - major revision 2010

The 20th century saw a remarkable recovery of the Church’s ministry of healing.  It is only as you read the history books that you realize how much this ministry had been neglected, and for how long.  Apart from healings associated with great saints, the Church had no involvement in healing ministry for over 800 years.  The Church had lost confidence in God’s willingness to heal.

Today many Anglican churches in the UK offer some opportunity for prayer for healing.  Christian organizations which promote healing now find a ready response to their programmes.  Christian people have discovered a new sense of faith in God’s power to heal. Healing in now an important element in the Christian agenda.

It is also high on society’s agenda.  Health is a big political issue.  People want a well resourced Health Service, and we spend large amounts of money on health products and fitness programmes.  With alternative therapies has come an increasing awareness of the spiritual side to health.  Hospital chaplains are often assisted by volunteer visitors.  Christian involvement in the public health programmes of Britain is at an all time high.

Both in the Church and in our health services, Christians are drawing alongside those who are ill and encouraging them to look to God for their ‘wholeness’.  But both these kinds of Christian involvement in health and healing require better training.  And they need training that brings them together rather than keeps them apart.

Sadly, the Church setting is often negative about medication and prefers to look to God to intervene in miraculous ways.  The health care setting is often critical of the Church for raising unrealistic hopes, and encourages people to look to God for support during the long road towards better health.  But there is truth in both these perspectives.  If Christians are to be faithful to their calling, they need to understand the two sides of the issue.

This is what this workbook is designed to do.  It forms the basis of training courses for both the Church and the health care setting.  And it promotes an understanding of Christian healing that makes sense of our experience today, both in the Church and in Christian involvement in modern health care.

'In Search of Wholeness' can be obtained from Whitehill Chase. Cost £13.95 inc p&p or through the online bookshop.