church health

G. Scott Morris 5-31-2023
A side-rear view woman doctor with red hair points to a screen with a spectrum of faces from sad to happy, asking her patient in the chair (a man with gray hair) which is most accurate for him. A purple screen with "Church Health" is shown nearby.

Photo courtesy of Church Health

IN SEPTEMBER 1987, ordained Methodist minister and practicing physician G. Scott Morris opened Church Health, a faith-based health care center in Memphis, Tenn. The first clinic tended to 12 people. Over 35 years later, more than 80,000 different individuals have come through Church Health’s doors. When they started, Memphis was the poorest city in the country, but Morris and companions didn’t open Church Health center as an act of charity. Church Health’s mission has always been about demanding justice. His book Care: How People of Faith Can Respond to Our Broken Health System tells the story of clinics across the U.S. where people practice Jesus’ command to heal. — The Editors

I FIRST CAME to Memphis in 1986. Having completed my theological and medical education, I was determined to begin a health care ministry for uninsured people working in low-wage jobs. I had dreamed of this for years as I slogged my way through the training that would make it possible. When the time came, I chose Memphis because historically it is one of the poorest major cities in the U.S. Today we see patients in clinics for primary care, urgent care, dental work, and optometry services. Behavioral health, life coaching, and physical rehabilitation are integrated into our clinics, and we have a teaching kitchen offering classes on culinary medicine for patients and the community. The Church Health model is used in more than 90 clinics around the country. There are about 1,500 free and charitable clinics in the U.S., many of which have faith-based connections.

God calls the church to healing work. Jesus’ life was about healing the whole person, and Jesus is the church in the world. Tradition suggests that Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, was the first to open a hospital specifically to care for the poor. The ancient world never had a system to care for the sick who were poor until Christians offered hospitals. Even Julian the Apostate, a fourth-century Roman emperor who did not have much use for Christians, wrote, “Now we can see what it is that makes these Christians such powerful enemies of our gods, it is the brotherly love which they manifest toward strangers and toward the sick and poor, the thoughtful manner in which they care for the dead, and the purity of their own lives.” We are still Jesus’ disciples, the body of Christ running after God’s priorities in the world together. What does it look like to have a healing ministry in today’s world?

5-30-2023
The cover art for Sojourners' July 2023 magazine issue, featuring a black-and-white illustration of a theater screen with a circular, mesmerizing, and disorienting pattern. A lone person with long hair sits in one row with popcorn and a drink in hand.

Illustration by Nicolás Ortega

Three recent films help us understand the power of spectacle, on and off the big screen.

Evan Dolive 8-27-2014
SUSAN LEGGETT / Shutterstock.com

SUSAN LEGGETT / Shutterstock.com

At a church I used to serve there was a well-intentioned person who after every service would tell me how many people were in attendance. “We had 47 today, Preacher,” he would say. I could hear the disappointment in his voice when he would have to tell me a low number like 35. A smile beamed across his face when we had more than 50. No matter the number, he would tell me without fail.

In every church that I have ever visited or served there has been an emphasis on the number of people that attend the morning worship services.

After years in the ministry, I have come to the conclusion that the church needs to stop taking attendance — immediately.

For many churches the process of collecting attendance is to get an accurate account of people in worship, to measure how many people occupy space in a pew. Some churches have notepads in the pews so people can fill out their information and place it in a designated area. Others have a volunteer to manually count the people in attendance. No matter how small or big the faith community is, an attendance is taken. Some congregations publish the number of people in their church bulletins or have it on a sign in the sanctuary to compare last week to this week.

For too long churches have measured their ‘success’ and ‘failures’ on the number of people that darken the door on 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. The quickest way to get people to wring their hands in worry is to tell them that numbers in worship have dropped. Visions of the church closing its doors will run through people’s minds inciting more and more anxiety.

It’s no secret that the church in the American culture is not where most Christians would like it to be. The church that was once the central hub of the community is now a place where a subset of people goes on Sunday mornings. The church has been in a decline for some time, and I believe this has caused us to become more inward focused. As the church began to experience decline numerically, the church’s reaction was to try making everyone left happy — from the ministers and worship leaders to the custodial staff. The boat was not rocked, things stayed the same, a course was laid, and no deviation would be acceptable.