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

June 9, 2005

?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 Church in Tulsa, OK.

?All? they?re doing is a care ministry with three components: domestic violence, cancer care and healthy heart and stroke prevention.

Each Sunday in June 2005, First Lutheran will highlight one aspect of their new caring ministry with an awareness Sunday addressing one of the components and commissioning a care team. The month will culminate with a health fair which provides health and wellness resources and hosts a blood drive.

?We?re out to heal hearts, touch lives and care for people of all ages in the name of Jesus Christ,? Maas explained.

Maas first learned of Our Journey of Hope® and its lay training for effective cancer ministry late last year. Thinking about the number of people touched by cancer and the special needs they have, he mobilized a coalition of Lutheran churches in Tulsa to consider the training and then scheduled it to take place in late February and early March 2005.

?Our people really appreciated the training; it was excellent. And it got us thinking about a number of other issues that touch people?s lives and how, if we had the training and were organized for ministry, we could better care for them and really affect the health of our community on all levels,? he said. ?We?re very excited with all we?ve learned. I consider it discipleship training in a way, as we?ve grown in our understanding of how to love and care for people as Jesus does.?

First Lutheran?s care ministries, composed of both clergy and laity, currently include an 11-member domestic violence team and 20-22 people who will divide up into cancer care ministry areas. ?We haven?t fielded the heart and stroke team yet, but we?re working in it,? said Maas.

In addition to the training received from outside agencies, Pastor Maas is supplementing the team?s training with in-house training on making house calls and giving home communion as well as through cancer-care seminars provided at the church through Our Journey of Hope®.

?This is how I envisioned Our Journey of Hope impacting the lives of church members and the surrounding community,? said Rev. Michael A. Langham, director of Pastoral Care at CTCA in Tulsa. ?As Our Journey of Hope continues to provide regular seminars at First Lutheran, the cancer care ministry members will grow in their knowledge and understanding of how to better meet the needs of cancer patients and their families, and cancer patients in their community will be ministered to and blessed.?