Our Journey of Hope
Cancer Treatment Centers of America

Lay Ministry Training News

Care of a Community

Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page ZB1 of Community

Ministerial alliance asked to help with cancer program — Our Journey of Hope The Rev. Michael Langham knows it takes two things for a successful program. One is resources or financial support and the other is people, said Langham, director of pastoral care for Cancer Treatment Centers of Ame ...Read more

Lay ministers learn about Foods of the Bible

Approximately 25 members of the KirkCare ministry team at Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma learned the difference between God's food and man's food at their monthly training meeting Feb. 9 at their church. Nutrition Manager Kalli Campbell and Pastoral Care Director Rev. Mich ...Read more

Our Journey of Hope® schedules first lay ministry trainings for Tulsa area churches

Pastoral staff at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Southwestern Regional Medical Center in Tulsa have scheduled their first two lay ministry trainings through CTCA's spiritual outreach called Our Journey of Hope®. "Faith and spirituality are cornerstones of our treatment philosophy at ...Read more

New ministries could result from lay ministry training

A number of participants in the first lay ministry training sessions offered through Our Journey of Hope® believe the information they gained through the eight hours will be the impetus for establishing some new caring ministries through their churches. "Lay members of my congregation are often aro ...Read more

Lay training provides practical help for effective ministry

Participants in the Our Journey of Hope® lay ministry training class at St. James United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma characterized the sessions as "informative and practical." Pastor Gary Harber of St. James said, "Our Journey of Hope effectively helps participants better understand som ...Read more

Our Journey of Hope® training provides impetus for care ministry creation

“Although we’ve expanded our caring ministries to include more than cancer care, it was really the lay ministry training we were offered through Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) that was the launching pad for all we’re doing today,” said Dean Maas, pastor of First Evangelical Lutheran Chur ...Read more

Churches gather for lay ministry training

In the last two weekends of October and the first weekend of November 2005, 11 churches in two states sent representatives to lay ministry training provided by Pastoral Care staff of Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southwestern Regional Medical Center in Tulsa through the organization’s ...Read more

Center teaches patient ministry

Free lay training is being offered to congregations wishing to learn how to effectively minister to cancer patients. Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa offers "Our Journey of Hope," a free lay training program that will be a year old in February. Cancer survivor Lyn Thompson said the t ...Read more

African Methodist Episcopal Church to Use CTCA's Cancer Training Program

ZION, Ill. and MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and Cancer Treatment Centers of America will be working together to establish and train cancer-focused healthcare lay ministries in the AME Church's 6,200 congregations around the world. This major ne ...Read more

Pair Hope to Enlist Churches in Cancer Fight

When Alaine Stevens learned she had breast cancer, she was offered the best medical care, from surgery to chemotherapy, but she wasn't getting everything she needed. Stevens, only 44 when she was diagnosed nearly three years ago, needed her cancer to be treated, but she longed to have her whole sel ...Read more

Helping others is overriding motive for participation in lay ministry training

Some are cancer survivors. Others are already caregivers for someone embarked on a cancer journey. Still others know someone battling the disease. All of them want to understand cancer better and how it affects a person and a family so they can provide effective help. Over 100 people representin ...Read more

Both staff and lay ministers benefit from training

If numbers are any indication, in the 15 months since Our Journey of Hope® began offering lay ministry training to churches to help congregants learn how to become more effective in ministry to cancer patients and their families, it has been well received. “Just through our facility in ...Read more

Parish nurses, others say training equips them for better ministry

Parish nurses in Illinois and Missouri are giving high praise to the lay ministry training program offered through Our Journey of Hope® (OJOH). During the months of July and August, the OJOH team from the Tulsa facility of Cancer Treatment Centers of America, trained 205 people represen ...Read more

Foods of the Bible seminar results in eight-week Bible study

Faye Lynn Hollenbaugh, from Anderson Island, Washington, has always said teaching wasn’t one of her spiritual gifts. But she also knew the information she’d learned at an Our Journey of Hope® (OJOH) evening seminar called “Foods of the Bible” needed to be shared. Our Jo ...Read more

Giving Faith a Chance

Spiritual support networks based in faith and open to all comfort cancer patients and educate communities.

Sandy Gragg shares the feelings of so many touched by cancer when she explains how those around her, though well meaning, struggled to support her when she was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. “Friends and family were at a loss for words to comfort me upon my diagnosis, and co-workers s ...Read more

Cancer study reveals spiritual needs not being met

Training equips churches for more effective ministry

A recent study published in the Feb. 10, 2007 edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology and discussed in USA Today on Feb. 15, 2007 describes the overwhelming desire for spiritual support on the part of cancer patients. The study also shows that, according to the same patients, those needs are n ...Read more

Cancer patients find support through Living Hope Foundation

Support group provides tools to cope with cancer

Begun in 2006 as a response to a lay ministry training event through Our Journey of Hope®, Living Hope Foundation has already touched over 200 lives in the Springfield, Missouri area. "We've seen many people relieved to have somewhere to go as an outlet," Pastor Denny Stevens said. "Most of th ...Read more

Cancer support group in Illinois uses a one-on-one structure for ministry

At Christ United Methodist Church in East Moline, Illinois, Parish Nurse Joann Stribling began noticing that prayer requests received on Sundays mentioned cancer a great deal. "Here was this great need, but we didn’t have formal ministry in place to meet it," she said. So, Stribling began ...Read more