Faith Community Nursing

Faith Community Nursing is a specialized practice of professional nursing that focuses on the intentional care of the spirit as well as on the promotion of wholistic health and prevention or minimalization of illness within the content of a faith community.

The Faith Community Nurse (FCN) is knowledgeable in both professional nursing and spiritual care. The FCN provides the same spiritual care in their church congregation as well as in the broader community. The goals of a FCN are the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities; the prevention of illness and injury; and the alleviation of suffering in the context of the values, beliefs and practices of a faith community, such as a church, congregation, parish, synagogue, temple, mosque or other faith based community agency.

At Living Lord Lutheran Church our FCN’s schedule the nurses to perform blood pressure screenings on the first and third Sunday of each month. We also educate on the importance of the congregant in taking their medications as prescribed, eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and the need to minimize stress in their lives. We also stress the importance of keeping doctor appointments and keeping their doctors apprised of any symptoms or medication side effects.

At Living Lord we display monthly educational data on a bulletin board in our Sanctuary Hall. The topics are many and varied – from heart disease, strokes, immunization of children, and sun safety for all. The FCN’s at LLLC are partnered with St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg where meetings are held so that the FCN’s can bring back information to our faith communities. We are also partnered with other congregations in Bradenton, Sarasota, and Venice and meet monthly with them to share educational opportunities as well as community resources for our congregations.

The FCN displays an intentional focus on spiritual health and uses the intervention of education, counseling, prayers, presence, active listening, advocacy, referral, and a wide variety of resources available to the faith community.

The king will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me.’ Matthew 25:4