Developing a healing ministry

Martin Kelley — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:49:26 +0000

I’ve enjoyed John Jeremiah Edminster’s comments over the years, which is one reason I was happen to get the submission that became The Cost of a Healing Gift. It starts with the story of having a gift of ministry recognized but what I like even more is that he talks about his journey exploring and developing it. What’s surprising is that is he’s far from a purist:

we went to weekend training workshops; we read the writings of Christian healers; shamanic healers; and practitioners of Reiki, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and homeopathy. I longed to be able to inspect people’s etheric and astral bodies, their chakras and marmas, with a diagnostician’s eye. So long as it involved no straying from Christ, I aspired to know how to mobilize healing virtues in plant spirits, minerals, colors, and sounds, and how to recognize “holy” places.

Some of this reminds me of the wonderful work of the eighteen-century Friend Samuel Bownas, whose book A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister is full of very useful advice on ministry and warnings about pitfalls—romantic attachments, undue politicization.

The Cost of a Healing Gift — Friends Journal

The discovery of a gift for healing is only the first step in a process of learning and…

Friends Journal