PARTNERS IN HEALING: BRIDGING PASTORAL CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH THROUGH PRACTICAL AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY

Abstract

Ellen was feisty but alone, a young adult whose mother had died, whose father had rejected her, whose siblings lived at a distance, whose priest misunderstood her. Her employer paid minimal health benefits. If Ellen had had systems of social support comparable to those available to most middle-class people, her life and her therapy would have been quite different. She did not. As politicians today urge, Ellen turned to the church for help, and, as politicians today demand, the church responded. But the church could not provide medication and the extensive hospitalization Ellen needed. Ellen depended on public health care to augment the church's pastoral care and counseling. Since government-sponsored systems and programs for care are being threatened, the time is ripe to consider how ministry, pastoral care and counseling, and public health might intentionally collaborate with one another. In the past, projects between local congregations and community health organizations have arisen spontaneously but have rarely been thought of as one of the arts of ministry. If we thought theologically about such projects, would we consider them pastoral care? Probably not. Nor could we easily classify them as education, church administration, or community ministry. Would we consider the skills and theological reflection in such projects to be foundational for pastoral ministry, something every pastor trained in pastoral care should know? Probably not, even though programs such as church-based preschools have contributed significantly to the psychological health of women and children. Since pastoral care has so defined itself by the psychological, therapeutic paradigm, the idea of "ministry and public health" seems strange. Although ministry has a haphazard relationship to health practices, the public health system, on administrative, educational, and local levels, has begun to organize its relationship to congregations. In Georgia, for example, administrative public health organizations such as the Carter Center, the Centers for Disease Control, the Georgia Department of Human Resources, and the Southeastern Governors Association work actively with congregations; the Emory School of Public Health teaches about congregations; and some local departments of health have solicited congregational partners. A national organization, the Health Ministries Association, a group largely comprised of persons in the health field with interest in spirituality and congregational involvement, has grown in five years to an organization of 1000 persons. Most