Do you attend church regularly? Are you more-or-less healthy? Or are you invisibly chronically ill? What do you think about chronic illness and church care?
Depending on which, you may have differing views of the compassionate care your church displays.
This post deals more with that care and compassion than with specific ideas for helping.
If you have extreme chemical sensitivities and visit Calvary Chapel Eastside, you will be excited to find they have a fragrance free zone especially for you so you can enjoy worshiping God.
However, if you visit a new church and sit behind a woman wearing a strong perfume, you will likely be unimpressed by that church – if you can even stay for the whole service.
How does your church stack up for a visitor living with those problems? What about members who have stopped attending? Have you shown enough care to find out why?
“Those who live with chronic illnesses do everything they can to look presentable, get to church, and sit through the service.” (Lisa) They often feel lonely and misunderstood. Do you realize they are there? Do you need specific ideas about helping?
Lisa offers 6 ideas about chronic illness and church care
- Conduct a survey to find unspoken needs.
- See the resource section for a link to a sample survey.
- Offer small groups or Bible studies for people with chronic illnesses.
- “Having a place where they can ‘speak the same language’ and even laugh at the same jokes can be invigorating.” (Lisa)
- Invite special guest speakers with physical disabilities to tell their stories of God’s work.
- A unique idea: add a nurse to your staff.
- He or she could minister at church or in the homes.
- If your church has a media library, be sure to stock it with helpful resources.
- Many chronically ill people are on fixed incomes and cannot afford to buy these things for themselves.
- Offer places of service for those with physical challenges.
In Closing
“We must remember that to provide a place where we offer hospitality, we must first ‘go out’ into our own pews and provide a place of refuge; then these people who have experienced the comfort in your church will be there to walk alongside the rest of the community with open arms of understanding.” (Lisa)
