Open a weekend church bulletin or the monthly or weekly newsletter (paper or on-line), and you probably will find a prayer list: The folks in the congregation for whom everyone is asked to focus their prayers on. How much do you you need to know about their needs?A United Methodist Church in Mesa has just published its monthly newsletter with a full page devoted to the prayer list. It shows two groups of names. Fifty-five names are under one headed “please remember these people in your prayers. Nothing more in included. And there are 56 more named under this heading: For those who are shut-ins and in care homes. Thats a tall order — 111 people to pray for. Another newsletter has a section showing specific needs: for a family in the death of a grandson, another in the death of an aunt, two people named as they recover from surgery; and another recovering from a fall and subsequent undergoing hand surgery.
Lots of careful judgment comes into play as pastors, deacons and caregivers of congregations decide what to share with their people to make them aware of health problems, grief issues and personal troubles of members. Its a balancing act between honoring requests for privacy and making the congregation have greater empathy knowing exactly whats ailing Ed. Some folks are tell-all types and dont care if the average member of their congregation knows it was a mastectomy, prostate cancer or liposuction. Yet others want to stay under the radar screen. They may find it OK that the church knows that they were in the hospital for tests, but want nothing reported when it comes out to be a need for treatment for lung cancer or cataracts.
Some parishioners confine knowledge of anything happening to them to a pastor at most, with strict instructions to have nothing said or published about them. They have to play along with the mystery of why Gertrude has not been in church for three weeks.
Then there are the members who slip in and out of hospitals and clinics and get treatments without a peep to anyone in their faith community, including pastoral care ministers. It may be they dont want all the fuss (cards, flowers and attention) or they feel steeled to get through their medical issue all by themselves.
During my three years as a deacon, one of my responsibilities was knowing the welfare of those families in my “neighborhood group.” It took sensitivity knowing how much to ask about conditions, what I should pass on to pastors and others and what to have put into the church bulletin and newsletter about them. More than a few times, well-meaning efforts to share what confronts them were too detailed or explicit. The other risk is for nothing to be said to a congregation when, in fact, the ailing member would have preferred more disclosure — leading to calls, visitors, cards and prayer and maybe better healing.
I suspect the time will come where congregations might sadly go the way of the health industry, controlled by the 1996 public law 104-191, commonly call HIPPAA for The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Its purpose is to keep peoples health and medical information private. Maybe it will be impermissible to publish prayer lists because that might suggest medical treatment. The pastor may only ask the congregation to pray for those missing that day from the pews — be they fishing or breathing their last breath in a hospital bed.
Keeping track of congregation members is always a problem for any church, especially member of a congregation that has pressing needs.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is much easier for us as we have defined geographic limits for our wards to watch over. Also every known member in a ward is assigned two church men, whom we call, home teachers to watch over every family, to provide assistance and report back to local leaders of pressing needs. Generally a set of home teachers has two to five families assigned to them. Also all adult women in a ward are assigned two churchwomen in the same fashion to specifically watch over and take care of them specifically.
Its not a system that functions perfectly, but it is very effective for us in watching over the flock.