Rachel Boehm Van Harmelen
February 2007
Judy Cook is a family therapist with Salem Christian Counselling Services who counsels individuals and families, including many victims and perpetrators of abuse. She is well acquainted with how deep people’s emotional wounds can be and with how desperately they desire inner healing. So the book entitled Let Jesus Heal Your Hidden Wounds: Cooperating with the Holy Spirit in Healing Ministry, authored by Cindy Strickler and Brad Long, struck a chord with Cook when she read it. She was eager to share its truths with others in her church community and she sought help from Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) to make it happen.
Salem Christian Counselling Services, along with Cook, applied for and received an SPE continuing education grant to organize a one-day seminar on the topic of prayer healing. They invited Strickler, a pastor with Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International, to lead the session, sharing some of the themes elaborated on in her and Long’s book. Held last September at Meadowlands Community CRC in Ancaster, Ontario, the conference was attended by more than 40 pastors and lay leaders from throughout the region.
Cook said the seminar allowed attendees to explore how the gifts of medical and other professionals, such as counsellors and therapists, intersect with the gifts of healing practiced by Christians and the church. Cook says she is passionate about helping Reformed churches take a more active role in healing ministries—a spiritual gift she says is often underutilized by Christians. “[In our tradition], we have accepted gifts of preaching, of teaching, of serving, of wisdom and knowledge, of faith—but not often the dynamic gifts of healing, of miracles, of prophecy and tongues,” wrote Cook in a recent article she prepared for Salem.
The conference couldn’t have been more timely for some congregations, who were just beginning prayer and healing ministries in their own congregations and came to the seminar to looking for help and advice. Those who attended really appreciated Strickler, praising her hands-on approach, said Cook. “One thing that was really good was that we practiced what we were learning,” she said. “Being able to form teams and pray with each other was a good exercise and people appreciated it,” she said.
Cook encourages other organizations and individuals to make use of SPE grant monies to strengthen specific gifts of church members and leaders or pastors. “The event wouldn’t have happened without the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence grant,” she says. “To be able offer events of this type is a real blessing.”
