Since our mission statement is to be “A Christian community of healing growth” we are pleased to offer the “Shalom Healing Ministry” as a way to achieve that mission. We will be using facilitators for this ministry who have been trained in “Gestalt Pastoral Care” which was developed by Tilda Norberg. Tilda is best known for her book Stretch out Your Hand: Exploring Healing Prayer in 1998. A typical session will take 1-½ to 2 hours and you may select one or two “observer/intercessors” to offer their support during the ministry.
What is Gestalt Pastoral Care?
“Gestalt” is a German word that is used in English to designate wholeness or completeness and it emphasizes the value of one’s experiences. It is most often used in reference to therapeutic counseling. “Gestalt Pastoral Care” rests on the belief that God’s grace is constantly at work in each person. Although we can’t predict just how you will be healed, you can expect to be touched in body, mind, spirit, emotions and social/relational context in a process unique to you alone. “Gestalt Pastoral Care” is rooted in the Christian ministry of healing, and integrates Gestalt growth work, spiritual companioning and prayer for healing.
(“Gestalt Pastoral Care” - Tilda Norberg & Rhoda Glick)
A Definition of Christian Healing:
“Christian healing is a process which involves the totality of our being (body, mind, emotion, spirit, and our social context), and that directs us toward becoming the person God is calling us to be at every stage of our living and our dying. Whenever we are truly open to God, some kind of healing takes place because God yearns to bring us to wholeness. Through prayer, the laying on of hands, through confession, anointing, the sacraments, and other means of grace, Jesus meets us in our brokenness and pain and there loves, transforms, forgives, redeems, resurrects, and heals. Jesus does this in God’s way, in God’s time, and according to God’s loving purpose for each person. Because the Holy Spirit is continually at work in each of us, pushing us toward wholeness, the process of healing is like removing sticks and leaves from a stream until the water runs clear.
Very often the results of our healing are increased faith in God and a new empowerment to love and serve others. Frequently we find that the very thing that caused our greatest brokenness becomes transformed into our unique giftedness.”
From Stretch out Your Hand: Exploring Healing Prayer by Tilda Norberg and Robert Webber (Published by Upper Room Books, 1998 p. 26-27)
What to expect in a healing ministry session:
- You can expect a facilitator who is open to healing prayer and trusts that God is able and willing to heal.
- You can expect to discover how God is nudging you from the inside to grow in particular ways.
- You can expect the uniqueness of your journey to be honored since healing comes differently for each person.
- You can expect the facilitator to be a coach, not an answer-giver or analyst.
- You can expect to be treated as an expert about yourself, and this process helps you discover what you don’t know you know.
- You can expect to be invited to work with experiments - actions that catch where you are and hopefully open the way to discovery and change.
- You can expect a holistic approach - matters of emotion, spirit, body, mind, and relationships all interact together, and attention is given to each aspect of one’s being.
Faith Imagination:
“Faith Imagination is a way of praying in which we specifically invite God to enter into our experience in a way that we can perceive God’s work in us. We do this in the faith that God wants to meet us at our growing edge, or where we are most vulnerable, hurting or scared. We invite God to work within our capacity for imagination so that we may see, hear, sense, or know how God wants to heal in this instance. Faith imagination can take the form of inviting Jesus to be with us in a painful or traumatic memory or in our physical pain. We can invite God to come to us while we ask an important question or talk about our feelings. Or, we can invite God simply to stay with us as we rest in God’s presence.” (Consenting to Grace: An Introduction to Gestalt Pastoral Care, by Tilda Norberg)
Steps in Faith Imagination: (These are possible steps that might be used in a session)
- With a brief prayer invite God to direct the process.
- Listen to the story of what needs to be brought to God for healing or discernment.
- Assist in making the setting of the story clear so that it can be experienced as vividly as possible.
- Invite the person to be in the setting so that the past is experienced as present.
- Stay with the experience until the person is as deeply aware of associated feelings as possible.
- Again invite God into the setting and the associated feelings that come to light.
- Help the person discern what God is doing through this experience.
- Stay with any resistance, asking the person to direct the resistance toward God.
- Don’t try to talk the person out of that resistance.
- Suggest ways for the person to take in more deeply what has happened during the prayer.
- Pray for the person and, with permission, lay on hands, and/or anoint with oil.
- Give thanks to God for what has already happened and pray for further healing.
- Talk a bit about what happened, especially sharing the experience of observers and the facilitator.
- Tilda Norberg (copyright, 1995)
If you are interested in receiving this ministry please get in touch with Pastor Nelson Shenk by the phone number or email listed below.
610-369-1974