In the days leading up to General Conference 2011, nurses and other medical professionals will gather at Roberts Wesleyan College to discuss how to promote health and wholeness in their congregations and communities.
Participants will learn about the concept of faith community nursing, also known as parish nursing, July 9 to 12 on the campus near Rochester, N.Y. They will earn continuing education credits while hearing experts in the medical profession, but the event will not be a typical nursing seminar.
“It will help to provide hands and feet of Jesus for the patient, for the community, for the family,” said Helene Kahlstorf, the president of Parish Nursing Inc. “That’s what we do in parish nursing. We are the hands and feet of Jesus.”
Parish Nursing Inc. assists health-care professionals in Free Methodist and other evangelical churches to begin a health ministry primarily by establishing the parish nursing role within their congregations. The organization is partnering with Nazarene Parish Nurse Inc. and Roberts Wesleyan College to sponsor the event in which participants can choose between a basic educational seminar and an advanced seminar.
The basic seminar will prepare participants to begin a nursing ministry within their congregation. Speakers will include Marabel Kersey, R.N., M.S.N., who has taught parish nursing on three continents, along with a chaplain, a nurse, a counselor and a State Board of Nursing representative.
Participants in the advanced seminar will concentrate on the theme of “Flourishing in Person and Practice for Parish Nurses.” Instructors will include the Rev. Michael Traylor, M.D.; Rebecca Letterman, Ph.D., associate professor of spiritual formation at Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College; Ann Marie MacIsaac, M.S.N., P.N.; the Rev. Doug Cullum, academic vice president and dean at Northeastern Seminary; Ann Marie MacIsaac, M.S.N., P.N.; and Bette Sue Allen, R.N., P.N.
For information on registration, cost, housing and meals, go to http://www.roberts.edu/academics/divisions/nursing/Parishing_Nursing/default.asp or contact Helene Kahlstorf at Kahlum@paulbunyan.net or (218) 699-3421.
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As a practicing parish nurse, I am looking forward to the seminar “The Church as a Healing Community” where we will learn principles to help ourselves and persons in our church communities to flourish, to thrive where we are, i.e in the midst of suffering, needs, joys, within the context of Wesleyan theology. This seminar will help us to “grow in both personal and social holiness… We want to be focused on disciple making that helps each person flourish… We want to become communities of loving people who must translate their love into action…Our world needs us to not only hold service of worship, but to carry out service as worship” (Bishop Matt Thomas excerpt from LIGHT AND LIFE January/February 2011).