The Church's Healing Ministry by David Dorpat
A Balanced look at a ministry often overlooked in the church today
I. A Theology of Healing
Alice’s wonderful mother was dying of painful cancer. Remembering such promises in the Bible as "Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him" (Mark 11:23, RSV), Alice was convinced that her mother would be healed. She received confirmation of this through the prayers and words of prophecy of valued friends. She and her husband began to tell their unbelieving relatives and friends, even the doctors and nurses, that God was going to heal her mother. One day Alice bought her mother a new dress to wear when she got out of the hospital. That was the day her mother died.
Many Christians are disturbed by stories of parents who have kept insulin from "healed" diabetic children and so contributed to their death, or sincere believers burdened with guilt when they believed a loved one had died because they themselves didn’t have enough faith. What leads to such an obviously unbalanced understanding of healing? How do we understand God’s promises to heal us?
The "Whatever" Passages:
At least part of the basis for prayers for healing are the promises our Lord makes in the Gospels, where he says that whatever you ask in prayer you will receive (Mark 11:22-25; John 14:13-14; 15:7; 16:23-24). Many of these passages seem to say that God always says yes to Christian prayers. He never says no, or wait, or maybe. He gives universal promises: Ask anything, and he will do it. When Christians join these promises, which seem to have no strings attached, to passages that speak of God as our healer, who desires to heal the sick and the suffering, the following kind of thinking may result: "Your symptoms are a lie. You have been prayed for and God says that ‘whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will receive it and you will.’ Therefore just believe it. If your symptoms don’t go away, claim your healing. Throw your medicines away. God has said it. We believe it. And that settles it! You are healed. Don’t believe in your symptoms. Believe in God’s healing power!"
Sometimes people take that approach and are healed. Other times people take that approach and die. The latter cases then make the headlines and bring dishonor to the gospel of Christ.
In The Name of Jesus:
That approach to healing often overlooks the conditions connected with Jesus’ promises to give us whatever and anything we ask. I believe that God not only wants us to understand those conditions, but he wants us to understand his whole teaching on prayer. He does give us "whatever" promises, but what are the conditions? I believe they can be summarized in the phrase, "in his name."
To pray in Jesus’ name is not to use his name as a kind of magical formula at the end of our petitions to get what we want from God. It really is just the opposite. It is a confession that we want to give up our desires and let God’s will be done. In Scripture the word "name" means much more than the particular name by which a person happens to be called. The name stands for the character and nature of the person.
To pray in the name of Jesus is to pray the prayer he would pray. Jesus’ life was one of complete dedication to the Father’s will. So in bidding us to pray in his name Jesus pulls the rug out from any selfish desire to satisfy our sinful flesh. Praying in his name is to pray that his will, not ours, is done.
Wanting God’s Will:
Most of us are not spiritual giants who always know the will of the Father. He reveals his will to us primarily through Scripture, but also, subject to Scripture, through the prophetic gifts, through our own time of prayer and meditation and through the circumstances of life. Yet there is still, on this side of eternity, a mystery to the will of God. We see through a glass dimly (1 Cor. 13:12). So rather than a willful "I want," Christian prayer is marked by a spirit of surrender, an "I want your way, Father, no matter what it means." It is not unbelief to have the faith of Shadrach, who said, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not...we will not serve your gods" (Dan. 3:17-18).
A Christian from England who has a healing ministry was asked about praying with people who are severely crippled with withered limbs and other severe problems. Most people have trouble praying for healing in these cases, since the severity of the problems present an obstacle to their faith. He answered that he has seen people like that healed, but invariably they are those so in love with Jesus that it doesn’t matter too much to them whether they are healed or not. They have learned contentment in his love and presence. He is all they want.
Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." That does not mean that we should list our wants and desires and then look on taking delight in the Lord as a way to get them. Instead, our goal is to so delight in God that our goals and desires change and become conformed to his plans. It is then that we can truly pray in Jesus’ name.
Faith, Love, and Hope:
Most Christian teaching about healing places a strong emphasis on the role of faith. The Lord does invite us to stand on his promises and claim our full inheritance as his children. However, an emphasis on faith that neglects the role of love and hope is unbalanced. We need to see all three facets of the Gospel of Jesus Christ - faith, love and hope- and apply them all when speaking of healing.
It seems to me that an emphasis on faith for healing helps us focus on the power of Christ (1 Cor. 12:4-11). God heals miraculously and instantaneously. It’s true, he does! It’s happened to me. Many in our churches have experienced instantaneous healings. But it doesn’t happen all the time. God heals in other ways too.
An emphasis on love brings out the fact that healing is also a process. Ultimate healing concerns the inner man. It comes through the gradual process of building community, of establishing nurturing, caring relationships, of dealing with and healing inner hurts and wounds and brokenness. An understanding of healing based on love emphasizes the character of Christ (Gal. 4:22-23), and the role of community, inner healing, repentance and forgiveness.
Finally, an emphasis on hope balances both our faith and love. It says that perfect wholeness and health await future fulfillment. Hope is not a word that promotes uncertainty or doubt ("I hope so, but I doubt it"). It is a sure, strong, positive word. The Christian hope of eternal glory and bliss in Christ Jesus is absolutely certain. Even now we are being changed into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18), but the full realization of that perfection awaits the second coming when we will see him as he is (1 John 3:2). In the meantime, the creation has been subjected by God to futility and decay (Rom. 8:18-25).
Jesus came to give us abundant, eternal life. We have that life now, and yet its full glory awaits his coming and our resurrection (John 11:25-26). We have only the first fruits of the Spirit now (Rom. 8:23), a foretaste of the glory which will be revealed. It is in that context that we administer healing, and it is in that context that healing is always a mystery. We do not know why some suffer more than others or why some are healed and others are not. But we do know that God’s ultimate goal is to give us health, and that the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Rom. 8:18).
Listen To One Another:
Any of these teachings can become unbalanced. When our emphasis on faith gets out of balance, it can take the focus off God and put it on faith. But faith doesn’t move mountains; God does. Prayer doesn’t change things; God does. Also there is the subtle danger of attempting to make God our servant, of feeling that we can manipulate him to do our bidding. God’s final answer to Job concerning his sickness and suffering was to tell him to be quiet. God is God, and we are to honor and trust him whether we have the answers or not. Who are we to question him or tell him what to do?
The message of love can become unbalanced when it doesn’t include the need for discipline or when it creates a community which becomes ingrown, with little concern for those outside its membership. Sometimes over-concern for the feelings of others can keep one from the whole counsel of God, which includes faith to lay hold of his promises and a healthy fear of his anger at our sin.
An emphasis on hope can lead to a fatalistic, other-worldly mindset which virtually denies that God does anything at all in this world. The unbalanced message of hope produces a joyless call to endure one’s cross and not mess with the status quo.
Someone has said that all error is unbalanced truth. Balanced truth frees. It seeks to see the total picture. It listens to and learns from others. Keeping faith, love, and hope in balance will help to free us from the fear that our prayers might not be answered or the guilt that we don’t have enough faith.
We have been freed to pray for anyone and leave the results entirely up to God. We know that he sometimes heals instantaneously and miraculously, that he sometimes heals slowly through a long process which includes medical treatment as well as prayer and love, and that sometimes he takes our sick ones home to be with him - the perfect healing. No matter what the results, we know he is a God of faith, love and hope who hears our prayers and answers them because in Jesus he has made us his children.
II. How Our Congregation Established a Healing Ministry
Edith learned about our healing ministry in the local newspaper. She had been referred to one physician after another who told her that they could do no more for her. On a Thursday evening she came to our first healing service and went forward to the altar for prayer. One of our ministry teams prayed for her and anointed her with oil (James 5:13-16). She rose to her feet completely healed of crippling rheumatoid arthritis, colitis and various other ailments. Her physicians confirmed her healing. Before that first healing service at Faith Lutheran Church, Geneva, Illinois, took place, a lot of prayer and preparation went on within the congregation. This section is written in the hope that it might be helpful to others who feel called to establish healing ministries in their congregations.
1. Does God want your church to have an organized healing ministry:
At Faith a lady had a burden for such a ministry and submitted it to the pastors. The pastors submitted the idea to the elders. After a time of prayer and seeking the Lord, the leadership of the congregation believed that God did indeed desire to establish such a ministry at Faith.
2. The healing ministry should be in ongoing submission to the leader-ship of the church:
Because there are extremes in almost any area of church life, including healing, it is wise to have good communication between the healing ministry and the leadership of the congregation. At the beginning, I, as one of the Pastors, was involved as the chief overseer of the ministry. Later an elder took over that responsibility but continually reported to and received guidance from the other elders and clergy.
3. Establish a Biblical, balanced theology of healing:
We knew from our study of the Word and from our experience that God does heal. We knew that one of the meanings of the word "salvation" is healing or wholeness and that Jesus came to "save" the total person and bring him, ultimately, to perfect health and wholeness. We knew that a comparison of the great atonement chapter of the Old Testament (Is. 53) and its partial fulfillment in Jesus’ healing ministry according to Mt. 8:17 would indicate that healing is part of the atonement. It was certainly a part of the "all" Jesus commanded his disciples to teach in the great commission (Mt. 28:20). We knew that gifts of healing did not cease with the apostolic age; but were reported often by later church fathers and that Martin Luther mentions in his writings that he believed in and practiced spiritual, miraculous healing (see Bengt Hoffman, Luther and the Mystics, Augsburg, 1976: pp. 199-200).
But we also knew that there were schools of teaching that seemed unbalanced. We came to believe that a balanced word on healing included the three familiar "Faith, Love and Hope" streams of biblical truth (see part I). This three-fold view of healing frees us to pray for all and leave the results entirely up to God. It also confirms that there are many different kinds of healing - instant miraculous healing, inner healing of wounds, hurts and devastating past experiences, deliverance, etc. It also confirms that man’s basic, primary healing is to be made right with God through the forgiveness won by Jesus on the Cross. This is the source and the goal of all healing.
4. Provide training:
When we felt God was leading us to be more involved in healing, we scheduled speakers and showed videos on healing. Finally we created a training course on ministering healing that included sessions on The Biblical Basis For Healing, Keys to Counseling, Inner Healing, Deliverance, The Place of Suffering in Healing, and Principles and Practices of Healing in a Local Church Setting. We also published a Healing Team Manual that spelled out the qualifications and responsibilities for the healing teams and procedures for the ministry.
5. Provide opportunities for healing ministry in the congregation:
Besides the regular Sunday evening healing services we began after our teams were trained, we provided many other opportunities within the congregation to receive healing. We set aside a vial of olive oil and placed it prominently on the altar for those who desired to be anointed with oil during healing prayer (James 5:13). They could ask for that prayer while attending Holy Communion, or before or after they knelt at the altar. A healing team, usually a husband and wife, was stationed near the chancel area for that purpose, or people came to the altar for prayer after the services. Perhaps the greatest healing happens in the home and in small groups. Although we felt it important to provide training for the heal-ing teams, Faith Church has always empha-sized that we are all called to pray for one another. Little children are often used by God to bring healing. All of our small groups have a time of prayer for needs and the testimonies of answered prayer from these groups are remarkable, though they receive no formal training except the daily school of the Holy Spirit.
6. Be hungry for the Holy Spirit and His gifts:
New Testament healing is consistently con-nected with the Holy Spirit. Even Jesus is said to have healed through the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38). No wonder Paul encourages us to "earnestly desire" the Spirit’s gifts (1 Cor. 14:1)! They are the equipment God is using all over the world in these last days as the Gospel of Christ is preached by "word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:18,19).
Marybeth had been diagnosed at a mental hospital as a hopeless schizophrenic. One day, while praying for her, one of the pastors kept seeing in his mind the picture of a safety pin. He later asked Marybeth if that meant anything to her. Her mouth dropped open in amazement and her head bowed low. The tears began to flow as she said, "I’ve never told anyone before, but since I have been little, I have been abusing myself with safety pins."
That confession was the beginning of her healing. Today she is able to hold a high security government job that required she pass rigid mental health testing. Scuti was a young girl when the Nazis occupied her native Holland. She remembers seeing hostages shot to death, their blood and brains splashed on the pavement at her feet. During the Allied invasion, she hid in a hole among dead bodies for five days. The horror of those times haunted her and gave her a great fear of death. She could still smell the dirt of that hole. Her fears began to affect her heart, causing an accelerated beat which simulated a heart attack. During prayer for inner healing, she saw Jesus standing before the hostages and, one by one, taking the bullets himself (which he did on the cross). As the gentle Shepherd lovingly ministered to her, the fears were relieved and her heart now beats normally.
Notice how the Lord used the gifts of the Holy Spirit such as the pastor’s "word of knowledge" (1 Cor. 12:28) regarding the safety pin and Scuti’s vision (which is a kind of prophecy, 1 Cor. 12:10, or revelation, 1 Cor. 14:30) to bring healing. Many other case histories could be recounted.
7. More than prayer is needed:
As Western society continues to decay and self-destruct, it needs to see an alternate society, a culture counter to the way it is going. Its only hope is the Church of Jesus Christ. Each congregation needs to be a healing community where the lost and lonely, the aimless and empty, the truly poor and broken can find health and wholeness in Jesus Christ. On-going care, training in relational skills, discipleship, dealing with old ways and habits, Christian fellowship and self-discipline – all of these are intended to happen in and through the Church. He has called and equipped us with his Holy Spirit to do that. The lost of this world are going to see the salvation of Christ, experience his love and joy and peace through us or they are not going to experience it. We, the Church, the body of Christ, are called to bring his healing to this sick world.
Rev. David Dorpat
20435 1st Place So.
Des Moines, WA 98198