Infuse: Health & Healing

Health & Healing
By Jewel MacLellan

1. How is your health?

2. What is health?
Medical definition of health is the absence of disease.
Spiritual definition of health is the wholeness of God.

3. What is healing?
Medical healing is physical, chemical or surgical intervention to overcome disease.
God’s healing is the activity that brings wholeness to a person wounded by sin. It is an ongoing process of transformation of the person into a new reality, the image of Jesus Christ (II Cor 5:17).

4. How does God’s healing bring about wholeness?
It is the total transformation that includes mending the physical, emotional, spiritual and relational aspects of a person. Many view the human body with removable, repairable, replaceable parts but in fact the body is a complex unit. When one part is hurting, it affects other parts as well.

5. What is the goal of religious healing?
It is not practicing medicine without a license.
It does not replace medical interventions.
It is not about miracles (focusing on an event so sensational that it forces faith from the observer) (Luke 11:29).
Religious healing enables the person who is hurting to experience God meeting their need (physically, emotionally, and spiritually).

6. Who does the healing?
God has chosen to establish His presence in the world through the weakness and limitation of human beings (Mat. 10:1, Mark 16:18, Luke 10:9).
Ministers of God’s healing are those people of God who reach out and touch the lives of hurting people in their world.
Any healing comes totally from God as the source and cause of healing and totally from His ministers as instruments God uses to transmit His healing power.

7. How can we minister healing?
a) Hospitality allows Christ to act through His Body by making a place in our homes and/or hearts for someone hurting to receive the peace of Christ.

b) Comfort that flows from compassion so that we can stand with a person in their suffering; to just be there, not giving advice and letting them work things out in their own way.

c) Listening to hear their pain and accept their definition of the problem and their feelings, respect the validity of their feelings without judgement.

d) Instruction at a teachable moment that is the precise information a person needs at a particular stage but is not of a classroom nature nor is it unsolicited advice giving. It flows out of a special relationship that is important to the person.

e) Prayer can effect healing without medical intervention, can speed up healing (even instantaneously), lessen side effects or strengthen effects of medical interventions.

f) Team healing ministries – are spiritually mature, motivated by compassion, knowledgeable, gifted and skilled people. They must not be incompetent or misuse their spiritual power. Called and trained to respond to request for healing, they have learned to minister better through a systematic approach.

8. What are the wounds that need to be healed?
a) Physical – skin, blood, muscles, bones, organs damaged by injury, infection, disease and congenital defects are easy to identify

b) Emotional – feelings of fear, anxiety, resentment, etc. that cause us to react in distorted and destructive ways.

deprivation from insufficient displays of love

trauma from abuse

c) Spiritual – wounds affect our mind’s ability to know God, our will to be able to make the right choices and our religious responses.

may be the result of spiritual deprivation; not being taught the basics (how to pray, who God is etc.)

may be the result of distorted information about spiritual things

spiritual trauma from being introduced to occult, organized crime, etc.

d) Relational Wounds – from birth to death we depend on others for our very existence. Immaturity can affect our ability to establish constructive relationships with other people, God, and angels as well as wrong relationships with demons. A wound in one area means that the entire human is wounded in some way. Minor wounds may be unnoticeable but big wounds impact in many ways.

9. What are our remedies for healing?
Natural – medical treatment, psychiatric care, nutrition counseling, exercise, listening and instruction, etc.
Supernatural – prayer, scripture, praise, blessing, deliverance, etc.
Combination – of natural and supernatural (e.g. first aid for injury and prayer for inner healing of fears, etc)

10. What does a healing ministry do?
a) Assessment: of the presenting problem, affect on other dimensions of person’s life, core problem.

b) Develop Plan: proper way to heal this person’s hurts, what needs to minister to, what strategy, limitations.

c) Implementation: difficulties, follow through

d) Evaluation: results, success, unmet needs, further action required.

11. How does a team minister healing?
a) Preparation of place (private, quiet, no interruptions), personal prayers, practical discussions. If impromptu, short prayer now and schedule time later with stated length of time.

b) Welcome person with introductions, explanation of ministry and brief prayer. Expectations clarified and defined, boundaries set.

Confidentiality always expected and must be maintained. Obliged to keep secret everything learned about the person and others from ministry. Sacred obligation, not ours to give away because we stand in the place of Jesus, not even disclose someone has come to us. Any violation is disastrous to the entire Body of Christ and causes distrust of all ministry.

c) Listen
Active listening to facts and feelings is the beginning of the healing process.
Careful listening to know if we are the right ones to pray, is this the right time to pray, what to pray for.
Good listeners are self-sacrificing as they restrain their desire to tell their story; listen with respect and unconditional love for the person. They are able to listen with serenity by praying before ministry and silently during ministry focusing attention on Christ who gives us peace.

Helpful responses by the listener include:

indications of acceptance (nod head, etc)
reflective responses (feedback)
focusing responses (keep on track)
facilitating responses (encourages going deeper)

Obstacles to being a good listener

Anxiety from feelings of incompetence
Misconceptions – must straighten person out

must solve this person’s problem
should be able to answer all questions

Ministers of prayer must constantly listen to both the person and to God.

d) Make an agreement with the person about the ministry; where ministry will take place, who will be the team members, what hurt will be ministered to, when and how long the ministry will be carried out.

e) Come into the presence of the Lord with 5-10 minutes of prayer, music, and/or song.

f) Minister with:
Prayers of affirmation (about 5 minutes) thanking God for this person, etc.
Prayers of intercession for specific and detailed healing. Only with permission, lay on hands.
Prayers of imagery that picture Jesus reaching out, touching injury and healing it but not to focusing on the hurt.
Prays for the solution not the problem.
Prayers of command to tell the body to heal itself where the healing is needed.

Each team member prays in different ways according to their giftedness and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Become quiet perhaps with quiet music and wait to see if Lord has a message for the person.
Ask what the person is experiencing.
Read any scriptures the Lord brings to mind.
Express God’s love.

g) Closure – at end of session when everyone senses that all that was needed has been done, give thanks to God for what he has done.
Ask person if anything was especially helpful and anything unhelpful.
Come to agreement if there is a need to meet again for prayer; how many more sessions to follow; where, when, etc.
Farewell and leave taking should be short. It is not a time to socialize. “We need to listen to the Lord about our ministry and to give thanks before we leave so we need to say good bye to you now.”

h) Debrief – team members remain for a time after the person leaves to discuss how everyone thought the session went, anything would do differently, places where God was most evident and gifts most noticeable.

Review how they functioned as a team, affirm specifically each member’s ministry, emphasis on affirmation not deficiencies. Discuss future direction this person’s ministry should take.

Ask if anyone feels burdened and pray for burden to be released. Give short prayer of thanks for continued growth for person, selves and team and for any further gifts needed.

Healing is a process and takes time, maybe many sessions. Prayer teams should not attempt to minister emotional healing for sexual abuse unless they have special, in-depth training for the problem. When a request cannot be met, must be careful to explain the seriousness of the matter is beyond our expertise and then find the competent help the person needs.

This study has been adapted from Healing Ministry, A Practical Guide by Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire. i