How to Help Your Church Minister to the Chronically Ill in 20 Minutes

Rest Ministries, the largest Christian organization that serves the chronically ill, recently did a poll, asking "List some of the programs or resources a church could offer to make it more inviting comfortable" Below is a sampling of the 800+ responses.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Open mind
• Desire to make a difference
• Willingness to spend a bit of money to fulfill needs

1. Send out emails that are encouraging.
2. Make sure the handicapped stalls in the restroom are functioning and clean.
3. Padded chairs or cushions, room for wheelchairs, and plenty of room for my family to sit with me.
4. Have an open mind about a support group for the chronically ill like HopeKeepers. It would make me feel very special that there was an understanding of people's needs that are not always visible.
5. More handicapped parking.
6. Educate the ushers that people arriving late may have difficulty walking or getting out of cars and will need some assistance.
7. Ask volunteers to call people with chronic illness just to check on them when they don't make it to services.
8. When suppers are given, I need help getting my meal or at least understanding from others that I won't be able to wait in a long line.
9. Be cautious when giving people big hugs. It can topple over or hurt the person.
10. Have a video tape of the service, not just a live web cast. Not all our computers work that well.
11. Check out the church doors. Can someone with an illness open them with ease? If not, install a mechanical button to push them open.
12. Stop telling me that if I truly believed and had faith I'd be healed by now. Please don't go on and on about how good I look even though I know for a fact that I look terrible and miserable that day.
13. Offer ways to serve within the church that can be performed regularly, but not on a set schedule so that I can still contribute, but there's enough flexibility that I can do the job when I feel well enough to do so.
14. Provide sermon notes in case I can't make it to the worship service and want to listen/take notes later.
15. Acknowledge National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. Rest Ministries has a nice book list of top 100 Christian books for the chronically ill. It would make a nice display in our bookstore that week.
16. Just mention chronic illness occasionally! Don't forget to talk about it in sermons as one of the challenges many people face just like unemployment or divorce.
17. Let me know about any Christian volunteers from church who would be willing to clean my house for a small fee. Some have offered to clean my house, but I am just not yet able to accept charity. But neither can I afford to pay a regular house cleaning service.
18. Help with some of the small costs of providing encouraging books and resources for the church library the chronically ill can check out.
19. Remember there are lots of caregivers in the church--not just caregivers of parents, but spouses and ill children too.
20. Have copies for free of the sermon on CD.