The diagram below is what their model would look like if the spiritual domain was included. The diagram links to a post about this consideration written by the Director of NCCIH.

During the NCCIH Advisory Council Meeting on July 1, 2025 (video cast), a Working Group on Spiritual Health presented a Final Report on this issue to the Advisory Council. (That report begins at the 1:34:10 mark in the video. See screenshots of many of the slides at this link – NCCIH Spirituality and Health Working Group Report – 7 1 25.)

After almost two years of study, they reported that “Well designed research is needed to evaluate the role of spiritual health/wellbeing to justify its inclusion as a domain of whole person health.”

So, NCCIH still will not recognize that a spiritual domain belongs in its Whole Person Health Model.

This exclusion of the spiritual dimension not only impacts negatively on all aspects of personal wellbeing, but on the public health of our nation such as chronic diseases and deaths of despair and their related plaguing social issues such as poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, unemployment, crime, violence, and suicide.

It will also impact negatively on the funding of research in the field of spirituality and health.

In this post I will challenge some information that the Working Group presented and again make a case for the inclusion of a Spiritual domain to their model.

Justification to Include the Spiritual Domain to the NCCIH Whole Person Health Model

In 2022 I wrote a detailed ‘white paper’ type of post titled Spirituality and Health in the Federal Government. The concern I addressed is that spirituality as a component of health and wellbeing is not generally recognized by the health agencies of our U.S. government. I pointed out at that time that the NCCIH model of Whole Person Health did not include a spiritual domain. In 2023 I wrote another post specifically related to their Whole Person Health Model. In both instances, I sent communications to the Director of NCCIH urging her agency to implement the recommendations I made in the posts.

The information I am presenting below is new and additional justification for the inclusion of a Spiritual domain to the NCCIH Whole Person Health Model.

A. NIH Agencies Indicate that the Care of the Spirit is Important.

1. A page of the NCCIH’s own website recognizes that a human’s spirit is a part of one’s whole person with the following text: “The word holistic (sometimes spelled wholistic) often refers to the treatment of the whole person—body, mind, emotions, and spirit – to achieve wellness and good health.” This recognition appeared on the NCCIH website well before they developed their model. So, some staff at NCCIH have previously recognized that the human spirit is part of the whole person!
2. The National Cancer Institute  (Another National Institute of Health agency) recognizes that there is a spiritual aspect of a person’s health. This statement is on their website: An Integrative medicine approach to medical care “often stresses the patient’s preferences, and it attempts to address the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of health.” This NIH agency understands that there is a spiritual component to a person’s health.

B. U.S. Adults Say It’s Important

1. 1. In 2022, NCCIH held a Request For Information (RFI) to the public to identify a Set of Determinants for Whole Person Health. They asked the public to assist them in compiling a list of major determinants of health that encompass the full continuum of biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains. Their instructions to respondents did not ask them to consider a spiritual domain. Results of the RFI were that 19% of respondents indicated that spirituality/religion was a determinant of health. This factor was the fourth most frequently identified determinant even though respondents were asked to consider only the biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains of health. (A request for more complete data of the results of the RFI was made to NCCIH but denied.)
   2. The greatest majority of US adults recognize that there is a spiritual aspect to their being and that caring for it is an important aspect of health.

  a. The Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study of U.S. Adults conducted in 2023-2024 found the following pertinent data:

1. 1. • • 86% of American adults believe that humans have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical bodies.
        • 83% of American adults believe in God or a universal spirit.
        • 75%  of American adults acknowledge having a sense of spiritual peace and wellbeing at some time during the year.

  b. 75% of Americans attend to their vital spiritual needs by choosing to affiliate with a specific religion. 69% of this group identify as Christian. (Gallup 2021 Poll on Religion in America) This is relevant because people align with various religions, and engage in practices of those religions, to attend to their deep spiritual nature and needs. This is how they live out their spirituality.

 c. A Mayo Clinic Proceedings publication reports that a survey found that 94% of patients regard their spiritual health and their physical health as equally important.

d. The same Mayo Clinic publication reports that another survey of family physicians found that 96% of patients believe spiritual well-being is an important factor in health.

e. Prayer is one of the most common spiritual practices by individuals in the United States, regardless of spiritual or religious orientation. A 2024 Pew Research Center report indicated that 45% of adults in the United States pray daily. Research on the impact of religion and spirituality (R/S) and health demonstrates that practices such as prayer generally impact favorably on wellbeing. Yet, prayer was removed as a form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by NCCIH in the 2007 timeframe. Read this post – Prayer is Excluded as a Form of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by Our Federal Government.

Since adults in the U.S. report that their spiritual wellbeing is an important facet of their health, NCCIH should recognize that a ‘patient-centered’ approach to caring for individuals should include the spiritual domain.

C. The Research on the Connection Between Spirituality/Religion and Health

The Working Group statement that “Well designed research is needed to evaluate the role of spiritual health/wellbeing to justify its inclusion as a domain of whole person health” is unmerited.

The spirituality/religion (S/R) and health research in the scientific literature has demonstrated a clear and strong relationship between many factors of S/R and well-being and health.  

1. 1. 1. A prominent researcher in the field, Harold Koenig, MD writes, “There is overwhelming, rigorous, objective evidence being published by some of the world’s top public health institutions that religious faith and practice influence mental, social, behavioral, and physical health (Koenig et al., 2024)” Koenig, H.G., VanderWeele, T.J., & Peteet, J.R. (2024).  Handbook of Religion and Health, 3rd ed.  NY, NY: Oxford University Press.
      2. In a related journal article this statement was written by 12 distinguished researchers in the field:  “The growing body of robust, empirical research strongly links spiritual beliefs, states of being, communal practices, and private rituals to a range of beneficial health out- comes including lower all-cause mortality.” This was written in the 2024 Health Affairs journal article titled – Spirituality As A Determinant Of Health: Emerging Policies, Practices, And Systems, Long, K, et. al.
      3. In a study (published in a 2020 issue of JAMA Psychiatry) of 66,492 female registered nurses and 43,141 male health care professionals in the US, attendance at religious services at least once per week was associated with a 68% lower hazard of death from despair (deaths related to suicide, drug use, and alcohol poisoning) among women and a 33% lower hazard among men compared with never attendance.
      4. “Participating in spiritual practices during childhood and adolescence may be a protective factor for a range of health and well-being outcomes in early adulthood, according to a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, published in the September 13, 2018 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
   2. 
   3.      5. See paragraph 8 in this blog post – Spirituality and Health in Our Federal Government – for a more detailed listing of the scientific research in this area.

D. The Spiritual Dimension of Wellbeing is Recognized by Leading Institutions

The NCCIH Working Group Report includes a statement as follows: ‘Spiritual Health/Well-being is currently not routinely incorporated as a separate factor of whole person health.’  This statement is not valid as evidenced by the following:

1. 1. 1. The organizations listed below promote the inclusion of a spiritual domain to their Whole Person Health initiatives/models, or to the spiritual dimension as part of ‘whole person’ care:
      • National Institute for Whole Health
      • George Washington University Wellness Model
      • The George Washington University Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish)
      • Georgetown University
      • Harvard University’s Initiative on Health, Religion, and Spirituality
      • University of Michigan Medical School’s Program on Health, Spirituality and Religion – (a LINK to their model)
      • Veterans Health Administration
      • Department of Defense – Total Force Fitness
      • US Army – Holistic Health and Fitness
      • Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine (AIHM)
      • American Holistic Nurses Association
      • National Wellness Institute
      • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)(an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
      • Southern California University of Health Sciences
      • University of Maryland
      • University of California Davis
      • Yale Program For Medicine, Spirituality and Religion
      • University of New Hampshire
      • University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
      • Columbia University’s Spirituality Mind Body Institute
      • Duke University Wheel of Health
      • Duke University Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health
      • Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions
      • National Cancer Institute  (A National Institute of Health Agency) This statement is on their website: An Integrative medicine approach to medical care “often stresses the patient’s preferences, and it attempts to address the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of health.”
      • The American Medical Association recognizes the importance of individual patient spirituality and its impact on health and encourages patient access to spiritual care services.

2. In a 2023 article published in the International Journal of Wellbeing, Assessing the Structures and Domains of Wellness Models: A Systematic Review, the authors write – “Based on this review the most commonly occurring domains of wellness are related to “Physical”, “Psychological”, “Social”, “Emotional”, “Spiritual”, and “Environmental” themes.”

3. In another article published on March 7, 2025 in the International Journal of Women’s Health, The Evolution of Wellness Models: Implications for Women’s Health and Well-Being, the authors identified 12 Wellness/Holistic/Whole Person Health models. Spiritual Wellness was included in the majority (7) of those models and the authors write, “Spiritual wellness was a notable dimension in several models, including the Wheel of Wellness, Perceived Wellness, and Whole-Person Wellness, reflecting its importance in a holistic view of wellness.”

The above references support the fact that Spiritual Health/Well-being is currently routinely incorporated as a separate factor of whole person health.

E. Spiritual Health Should be Included in the Measurement of Whole Person Health

Authors of recent peer-reviewed journal articles do recommend the inclusion of the spiritual dimension when measuring whole person health.

1. 1. 1. In a 2025 peer-reviewed journal article titled Measuring Whole Person Health: A Scoping Review –  the authors write the following in their results section: “Our search identified six WPH (Whole Person Health) measures. All six WPH measures included assessments of the biological/physical, behavioral/mental, social, and spiritual domains.” This was their conclusion:  “The results of this scoping review provide a greater understanding of the domains involved in WPH as a multidimensional construct. Although no existing WPH measures are suitable for broad use, their structural commonalities imply that WPH measure development efforts should consider the assessment of physical, mental, social, spiritual (my emphasis), and individual domains.” Measuring Whole Person Health: A Scoping Review. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, April 3, 2025 (This very recent research was funded by NCCIH.)
      2. In the book, Measuring Well-Being there is a chapter titled Tradition-Specific Measures of Spiritual Well-Being, authored by Tyler J. VanderWeele, Katelyn N. G. Long, and Michael J. Balboni of Harvard University. They write – “The neglect of spiritual well-being is thus an important omission in most assessments of well-being,” and also, “Since it is indeed the case that so much of the world’s population views religion and spiritual well-being as central, it would seem that any holistic assessment of well-being would arguably allow space for assessments of spiritual well-being as well.”

F. Spirituality is Recognized as a Determinant of Health

As part of their rationale for not including spirituality as a domain of whole person health, the Working Group reported that Social and Environmental factors are accepted as ‘determinants of health.’ They imply that spiritual factors are not accepted or recognized as a determinant of health.

1. 1. 1. 12 leading researchers in the field of spirituality and health do recognize that spirituality is a determinant of health as pointed out in this June, 2024 Health Affairs journal article – Spirituality As A Determinant Of Health: Emerging Policies, Practices, And Systems. In the article they state, “Reimagining public health’s future should include explicitly considering spirituality as a social determinant of health that is linked to human goods and is deeply valued by people and their communities.” They also state, “As empirical scholarship increasingly illuminates these connections, public health systems must seek additional ways to recognize spiritual determinants of health as a vital dimension, and extension, of whole person, whole-community well-being.” These recommendations emerged from their systematic review of empirical evidence on spirituality, serious illness, and population health published between 2000 and 2022.
      2. In a 2023 council meeting, the NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities approved “spirituality and religiosity as psychosocial determinants of health” as a research concept.
      3. In paragraph B 1 above, read that in a public request for information, spirituality was the fourth ranked determinant of health identified by respondents.

During the July 1, 2025 Council meeting referenced above, the NCCIH Director, Dr. Helene Langevin indicated that the NCCIH has been ‘dancing around’ this topic of spirituality for quite some time. They continue to ‘dance around’ this issue by not recognizing that there is a spiritual domain to one’s whole person health and by not adding this as a domain to their Whole Person Health Model.

NCCIH’s position is that more studies and research on the connection between spiritual well-being and health is still required to justify the inclusion of the spiritual domain in its model. At their current pace of studying this issue, it could likely be many more years before NCCIH might make a decision to recognize that spiritual well-being is a relevant and important facet of whole person health.

Spiritual distress and poor spiritual health are at the root of many chronic diseases and social issues. Delaying the addition of a spiritual domain to their model continues to contribute to the poor health and well-being of our country’s citizens.  This negatively impacts many chronic diseases, deaths of despair, and related social issues such as poor mental health, poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, unemployment, crime, violence, and suicide.

Other federal agencies, including Health and Human Services agencies, are beginning to use the NCCIH model of whole person health for their policies, programs, educational materials and research. The continued use of the existing model, which excludes a spiritual domain, by other federal agencies further contributes to the poor health of our country’s citizens.

NCCIH has a robust 5 Year (2021-2025) Strategic Plan to guide their research. If the next version of this strategic plan were to be developed with a model of Whole Person Health that excludes the spiritual domain of health, it would further impact negatively on the public health of our country.

With the above in mind, I have provided compelling rationale for the NCCIH to recognize that spirituality is an important, seperate component of integrative health care, and for the immediate inclusion of the spiritual domain to the NCCIH whole person health model.

Recommendations:

1. 1. 1. That members of the NCCIH Working Group on Spiritual Health review the contents of this post and reconsider their decision to not add a spiritual domain to the NCCIH Whole Person Health Model.
      2. That the members of National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health (NACCIH) review this post and recommend to the leadership of NCCIH that the Spiritual domain of individual health be added to its Whole Person Health Model.
      3. That the staff of NCCIH make a decision to add the Spiritual domain of individual health to its Whole Person Health Model.
      4. That in any future NCCIH workshop to explore spiritual health, people of faith representing the most prevalent religions in the U.S. be included.
      5. That NCCIH recognize prayer as a form of CAM and that it be added back to future National Health Interview Surveys related to complementary and alternative medicine. (Read this more complete blog post concerning this issue.)
      6. That each recommendation made in the paper – Spirituality As A Determinant Of Health: Emerging Policies, Practices, And Systems – be implemented.
      7. That the recommendations I made in an earlier post concerning Spirituality and the Federal Government be implemented as well.
      8. That further research in the field of spirituality/religion and health include the study of sacred texts to learn of principles and interventions related to spiritual wellbeing that have been provided to us by our Creator.

Call to Action:

1. 1. 1. Contact NCCIH to inform them that you support the recommendations that I have made above.  Do this by sending an email to nccih-info@mail.nih.gov.
      2. Contact your state’s members of congress to make them aware of this important matter and ask that they become an advocate for this issue. (Senate Committee on Health. House of Representative Subcommittee on Health. (scroll to the bottom to view members.))
      3. Contact a local or national news agency, or an influencer on social media, and suggest that they run a story on this issue.
      4. Share this blog post with others in your network, or on your distribution list, so that they can become informed and be an advocate.
      5. For the White House Faith Office to actively advocate for this issue and support these recommendations.
      6. For the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, representing the medical profession of the largest religion in America, to be an advocate and address this as an issue of concern.
      7. For members of the NIH Religion, Spirituality, and Health Scientific Interest Group to support this matter.
      8. For the leadership of the Health and Human Services Center for Faith to be an advocate for including the spiritual domain of health to NCCIH’s model.

I invite and encourage you comments to what I’ve written!  Where it might be helpful, share your credentials and the name of your organization.

What other recommendations or calls to actions would you add?

“Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.” 3 John 2, The Holy Bible

Prayer is one of the most common spiritual practices by individuals in the United States, regardless of spiritual or religious orientation. A 2024 Pew Research Center report indicated that 45% of adults in the United States pray daily. Research on the impact of religion and spirituality (R/S) and health demonstrates that practices such as prayer generally impact favorably on wellbeing.

As of the date of this post, the NCCIH website, which was last updated in April 2021, indicates on this image depicted below that Spiritual Practices are a form of Psychological complementary medicine that falls in the category of Mind and Body Practices, yet it fails to acknowledge that prayer is one of those practices and therefore does not measure its use as a CAM practice by Americans.

Examples of complementary health approaches – NCCIH

In 2004, the CDC reported that prayer was the most common form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) used by adults in the U.S.  The data is from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in which NCCIH sponsored questions about the use of various CAM therapies, including prayer. Of those adults who reported using any CAM therapy, 43% indicated they prayed for their own health and 24% reported that they prayed for other’s health. The next highest frequency of any form of CAM therapy reported in this 2004 CDC report was the use of natural products by 19% of adults. Of the 27 types of CAM studied, prayer for health reasons was the most frequently used! (See Graph Below)

CDC Advance Data Number 343 May 27, 2004

Beginning in 2007, and since that time, the NHIS Survey has not included questions about the use of prayer as a CAM as the NCCIH stopped requesting that prayer be included in the survey. Instead of measuring the use of prayer, the survey began to measure the use of “spiritual meditation.”

In a communications to me by the NCCIH Clearinghouse, I was informed that “the literature” (see this one paper they referred to – Is Prayer CAM? ) was an influencing factor in removing prayer from the 2012 NHIS Survey) To me, this paper does not make a good case for excluding prayer as a form of CAM.

Terms and language are important. I contend that most people who align themselves with any religion place a very high value on their practice of prayer to connect with and relate to the God of their religion. Christians, for example, are instructed and encouraged by their sacred text, the Bible, to pray to God and to pray for one another.  By so doing, they are attending to their own spiritual, mental, emotional and physical wellbeing and to the wellbeing of others. Christians do not regard their personal prayer practice as ‘spiritual meditation.’

So, might the exclusion of prayer as a form of CAM by the NCCIH be considered a form of religious discrimination?

It seems preposterous to me that the NCCIH does not recognize prayer as a form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)! Their own website indicates that spiritual practices are a form of CAM, and prayer is certainly a spiritual practice. And the 2004 CDC report referenced above demonstrated that prayer was by far the most frequently used form of CAM in the U.S. at that time.

Prayer is a spiritual practice that should be considered as a form of CAM by the NCCIH and it should specifically be listed as such, and it should be added back to future National Health Interview Surveys related to complementary and alternative medicine.

Additionally, the spiritual dimension should be added as a domain of individual wellbeing in the NCCIH’s model of Whole Person Health. It currently is excluded. (Read this post: Is Spirituality a Domain of Whole Person Health?) To exclude it suggests that the spiritual nature of a person does not exist. This exclusion of the spiritual domain of Whole Person Health could also be considered a form of religious discrimination to those who recognize that humans are spiritual beings who live in a physical body.

What are your thoughts? Please share them in the Comment section below.

On Friday, May 12th, 2023 at 12 PM Eastern Time, their Advisory Council will be meeting (open to the public virtually) to approve a concept of the NCCIH research initiative. Read about the meeting here – Whole Person Health research concept meeting.

The NCCIH Whole Person Health Model does not include a spiritual domain, only these four domains: biological, behavioral,  environmental and social. This is concerning as research demonstrates that numerous factors related to an individual’s spiritual wellbeing clearly affects one’s physical, emotional and mental health.

At the above link for the May 12, 2023 meeting, the public is invited to submit comments regarding this Whole Person Health research initiative. I have submitted the following as a comment.  If you are also troubled by the fact that the NCCIH model of Whole Person Health does not include a spiritual domain, I encourage you to also submit a comment by May 27th, 2023. (visit the meeting link for instructions.)

Whole Person Health Research Concept at NCCIH – A Comment on Spiritual Health

This comment was provided to NCCIH regarding the concept for an initiative for Whole Person Health Research that will be presented to the NACCIH on May 12, 2023:

On a page of the NCCIH website that defines terms, your agency recognizes that one’s spirit is a part of one’s whole person with the following text: “The word holistic (sometimes spelled wholistic) often refers to the treatment of the whole person—body, mind, emotions, and spirit—to achieve wellness and good health.

Yet, the NCCIH framework for Whole Person Health (WPH) does not recognize the Spiritual domain of an individual.

If the concept for the WPH Research Initiative does not include the exploration of whether the spiritual domain should be included as part of the ‘whole person’ framework and considered just as important as the biological, behavioral, social and environmental domains, why is that?

A ‘white paper’ – Spirituality and Health in Our Federal Government – provides rationale, with referenced research, for including the spiritual domain in the NCCIH’s framework of WPH. This paper names several prestigious institutions of higher learning in the US that research this field and have documented the connection between spirituality and health. This research in the scientific literature has shown that incorporating spirituality into personal self-care and into the healthcare of patients can have positive effects on physical, emotional, mental, and psychological well-being.

Doctor Langevin’s blog post of 3/28/23 on a Whole Person Approach to Lift the Burden of Pain refers to the effectiveness of the VA’s Model of Whole Health, which has a spiritual dimension. Medical professionals who helped develop the DOD’s version of Whole Person Health, Total Force Fitness, deemed fit to include the spiritual domain in their framework. Both the VA’s and DOD’s frameworks are referenced by NCCIH as examples of systems that are using whole person health in health care.

This page of the NCCIH website states “In the context of whole person health, (research) topics should focus on exploring the fundamental science of interconnected systems…” Available research does demonstrate that the spiritual aspect of a person is a unique and important ‘system’ that is connected to an individual’s biological, psychological, emotional, and nervous systems.

Yet, the Executive Summary of the NCCIH Strategic Plan FY 2021–⁠2025 Mapping a Pathway to Research on Whole Person Health and your website’s definition of Whole Person health excludes the spiritual domain stating that whole health has ‘multiple interconnected domains: biological, behavioral, social, and environmental.’

The slight mention of Spiritual Practices on the venn Diagram on Complementary Health Approaches, or the identification of Spirituality, Meaning and Purpose as one of 11 Factors or Determinants of Whole Person Health, does not properly represent the magnitude of the multitude of spiritual factors that impact positively on health. Spiritual practices, beliefs, attitudes, thinking patterns, and a relationship with a higher power tend to improve coping skills and social support, foster feelings of optimism and hope, promote healthy behavior, reduce feelings of depression and anxiety, and encourage a sense of relaxation. Spiritual factors like faith, hope, forgiveness, and prayer have a positive effect on health and healing. By alleviating stress and promoting healing, spirituality can positively influence one’s immune, cardiovascular, hormonal, and nervous systems.

In the 2022 NCCIH RFI to the public to identify determinants of Whole Person Health, 19% of respondents indicated that spirituality/religion was an important factor. This factor was the fourth in frequency mentioned even though respondents were asked to consider only the biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains of health. This is another representation of the importance of adding a spiritual domain to your WPH model.

The spiritual nature of an individual and it’s numerous and various corresponding factors play a significant role in an individual’s health and wellbeing. NCIHH is the most appropriate governmental health agency to recognize spirituality’s significance and to include it prominently in its WPH framework and to recognize it as a complementary approach to health.

As included in the above mentioned ‘white paper’ I propose that the spiritual component/domain of health be incorporated into the NCCIH framework for whole person health as a separate domain and into the 2021-2025 Strategic Plan.  As a precursor to this, I recommend the NCCIH conduct a roundtable with a goal of advancing research in the area of spiritual wellbeing to better understanding its role in improving health. (Such a roundtable on emotional wellbeing was conducted in 2018.)

Thank you for your consideration.

Dale Fletcher, M.S.

Whole Person Health – Why a Spiritual Domain Should Be Included

The following is a concise rationale of why the NCCIH Model of Whole Person Health should include a Spiritual domain of Individual Health:

1. Humans have an immaterial part of themselves that many recognize as a soul or spirit. Read this page on my website – Spirit, Soul and Body – How God Designed Us.
2. The greatest majority of Americans (75%) attend to their vital spiritual needs by choosing to affiliate with a specific religion. 69% of this group identify as Christian. (Gallup 2021 Polls on Religion in America)
3. The spirituality or religion (S/R) and health research in the scientific literature has demonstrated a clear and strong relationship between many factors of S/R and well-being and health.
4. Our federal health agencies exist to serve the various demographics of our nation’s citizens. Their research should focus on what matters most to our citizens.

I encourage you to attend the virtual meeting on May 12th to become informed and to submit a comment regarding this research initiative.   The more this field of the connection between spirituality and health is researched, the clearer it will be documented that many spiritual factors positively affect health and wellbeing. This should result in more focus on this area, better whole person health care to people, a better informed public, and ultimately will lead to improved wellbeing of our nation’s citizens.

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I believe that the local church should consider itself as the most important center for health, healing, and whole person care within our communities. This blog post explains my rationale and some key considerations.

When I began my career in private OB/GYN practice in 1991 there was already what many termed a “health care crisis” in the US. From exploding costs to a shortage of healthcare professionals there seems to be a never ending focus on the shortcomings of healthcare provision in this country. We seem to be moving inexorably toward a single payer system along the lines of what exists in Europe and Canada even though the severe shortcomings of those systems are becoming more manifest all the time. On a global scale the discussion focuses frequently on “health” as a human right, though what constitutes health is rarely discussed. Other than perhaps to refer people to the World Health Organization definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” While I have no problem agreeing that access to affordable, culturally appropriate, sustainable and high quality healthCARE is a human right the idea that health itself is a human right makes no sense. And the truth of the matter is that what we are mostly talking about is access to quality and affordable disease management services since this is largely what our healthcare industry is geared to do. But I’ll not take us down the path of that discussion.

I want to consider this challenge from the perspective of the Christian church. From this perspective I do believe we should be focusing on the issue of HEALTHcare and not simply disease management. At this point many will likely be asking, “What does the church have to do with healthcare?” Even though ministries of health and healing (central to Jesus’ 3 year ministry) services have historically been integral to the ministry of the church (the Church essentially invented the modern hospital system) it has now become almost exclusively the work of secular and business minded organizations. Some exceptions exist though they are fewer and fewer. (The Roman Catholic and Adventist healthcare systems come to mind.)

Since the majority of Western Christians function from a dualistic and reductionist worldview there is typically a limited knowledge of a truly biblical understanding of health and thus a lack of wisdom with regards to the church’s role in ministries of health. (and I would add healing and wholeness) Time and space are not sufficient in this posting to delve into the roots of this dualism/reductionism so I will focus on what is possible now and for the future.

What are the challenges facing the global Church with regards to discovering its full calling to ministries of health, healing and wholeness? First and foremost is our shallow understanding of what health is from a biblical perspective. We are burdened with blinders in this regard because when health comes up in our conversations we immediately think of things related to our physical and perhaps mental health. It conjures images of hospitals, clinics, MRI machines and all the latest high tech solutions to our physical and mental health problems. Our healthcare technicians (doctors, nurses, etc.) are trained to function within this system and for the most part are greatly hindered from really addressing the true health needs of their patients. So what is a more biblically centered understanding of health?

My longtime friend and mentor, Dr Dan Fountain, states, “Health cannot be defined. It is not simply an object for analysis. To render it such is to think secularly about health. Health is life, a gift we receive, an endowment we are to develop, and a journey we are to pursue. We can observe and analyze much along the way, we can manipulate and improve certain aspects of health and life, but we can never comprehend the whole… there remains a mystery.” (in “Health, the Bible and the Church” 1998 BGC publication – available upon request)

Dr John Wilkinson, a British physician and pastor writes in “The Bible and Healing: A Medical and Theological Commentary” that “…any adequate definition of human health and wholeness can only be in terms of the life and perfection of God who created human beings for fellowship with himself and whose will it is that they should share and enjoy the same life and perfection as his own.” Wilkinson goes on to describe health as life, blessedness, holiness and maturity. Surely a very different set of descriptions for what health is or should mean to the Christ follower.

Dr E. Anthony Allen, also a trained clergyman, states “Properly considered, the meaning of the term “health” leads us, therefore, to a new semantic, calling for the terms “wholeness” and “healing.” Wholeness comes not by “treating” in the narrow sense of the word, which means acting upon” organisms as we have learned to as health professionals. Rather, health or wholeness comes by healing.” (in “Caring for the Whole Person”)

We at the Centre for Health in Mission have a comprehensive outline that more fully explains our thinking of a biblical perspective on health and can be accessed at this link. A final means by which we can understand health from God’s perspective can be achieved by a deep study of the Hebrew word Shalom. The reader is strongly encouraged to undertake such a study, preferably in a small group setting.

If, then, we were able to convince the global Church that this is indeed a more accurate understanding of health, what does that then mean for how she should be involved in ministries of health, healing and wholeness? This discussion could go in many directions but in this short blog post I will explore just one. But it is the one I believe could have the most impact in the world. It is the idea that the local church should consider itself as the most important center for health, healing and wholeness wherever she exists. It is safe to say that the foundation for true health rests on the foundation of healthy relationships. The most important relationship for man is that which can exist between him and the Creator God through His Son Jesus Christ. Outside this relationship humans are and will remain in a broken state in desperate need of healing. (The Greek word sozo is translated both as salvation and healing.) This, then, is the most essential role and first step of the local church with regards to leading broken people into a life of true health and it is perhaps what we have been the best at doing through the centuries.

But is the local church being called into something more? I often ask pastors how they interpret James 5:13-16.

Is anyone among you suffering? He should keep on praying. Is anyone cheerful? He should keep reciting psalms. Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray for him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will save the person who is sick. The Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, make it your habit to confess your sins to one another and to pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:13-16

Is there an application of this passage for the church of the 21st century? I would of course respond YES this is still a relevant passage for the church. To me this passage essentially says our churches and our church leadership is where our members should turn first if they are feeling dis-eased. I am not advocating that at times of obvious emergency (compound fracture for example) we are to call our elders first so they can come and pray for the afflicted before rushing off to the ER. But, considering that most cases presenting to the emergency room physician and to urgent care centers are the result of bad lifestyle choices, we would do well to start our journey of discovering the roots of our dis-ease by calling on the leaders of our churches. They can then help discover/discern whether the sick person is suffering from the consequences of sin and if so pray and then help lead the person through a process of inner healing which may be sufficient for resolving the problem. We need a balanced approach to caring for the hurting and suffering in our churches and communities. Prayer will help and at times may facilitate a miraculous healing, (though I believe these are rare) but my experience has been that the Lord usually chooses to cure our illnesses through the means He has provided – medicines, surgical procedures, etc. The oil referred to in the passage in James also referred to oil used for medical purposes.

I will end this discussion by advocating that churches should have healthcare teams that can assist the leadership in discerning the roots of people’s illnesses. I see so many churches which seem to have a paid pastor for most any type of ministry you can think of but how many have skilled mental health professionals, primary healthcare professionals or social workers on their staff? The root causes of illness in our society are very complex and require this team approach to caring for people. I believe the local church is the greatest hope for dealing with the massive healthcare crisis we have in this country and around the world. Can you imagine the impact that whole person care, church-based health centers could have if even just one such church existed in each community? They could serve as the most effective primary health care centers in the world. And the opportunity for bringing non-believers into the kingdom would be unmatched by any other means the church can imagine. It is the way Jesus and His disciples did it. Weren’t we assured by our Savior that we would do even greater things than He? And this is to say nothing about what impact this church model of health care could have on reaching the remaining unreached people groups in the world!

Where are the church leaders who are willing to embrace this calling that God has put on His bride? It will be tough going since seminaries teach nothing about this to their students and healthcare education institutions are certainly not typically teaching their students these concepts. We need a few churches whose leaders are willing to take the risk of beginning a journey down this road to experiment with what it might look like for this to become a reality. Leaders who are willing to plant churches whose vision is to help people live lives of health and wholeness in Christ.

Are you such a leader who is willing to engage in this new paradigm? Do you know of one?

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My Comments

Mike is clearly very passionate about this topic! I can imagine a scenario where a local church would team up with a health system or hospital and collaborate on such an initiative. The hospital could partially or totally fund the presence of a mid-level health care provider like a Nurse Practitioner or a Physician Assistant who is walking with Jesus and is Spirit-led. Part of this team might be a Faith Community Nurse. These practitioners could be part of a triage team that screens individuals.  Acute and complicated medical issues could be referred to the local hospital. Physical conditions that might be rooted in spiritual issues could be referred to a healing team within the church. As non church goers in the community learned that their local church was caring for the whole person heath needs of people this would attract many of them to the church where the church staff could be Jesus to them. This would result in many people experiencing God and entering into a relationship with Jesus.

If you are part of a church that provides whole person care as described above, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re interested in developing such a model of whole person care at your church, we’d also encourage you to comment in the space provided in this post.

Related Resources

Blog Posts About Church Health

Blog Posts About Wholeness

How the Church Health Center in Memphis, TN is providing Whole Person Care to the Memphis Community

Today’s edition of Faith and Leadership, a monthly publication of Duke Divinity School, contains an interview of Maddox in an article titled “Randy Maddox: John Wesley Says “Take Care of Yourself.”

Here are a few article excerpts:

““Wesley is convinced that God cares about the whole person,” Maddox said. “He doesn’t see the spiritual and the physical as separate.” Wesley believed that God wanted human flourishing in every dimension, indeed, the flourishing of all creation.”

“Today, spiritual care is done by pastors in churches, and physical care is done by physicians and nurses in hospitals and clinics. But you would not have had that separation before the 1700s.”

In a related article, Maddox writes, “In his book,  “Primitive Physick,” the Rev. John Wesley offered the people of his day both an overall preventive approach to health and a long list of remedies for specific ailments — in all more than 800 prescriptions for more than 300 different disorders.”

Thanks and kudos to Maddox for his insight and to the Duke Divinity School for sharing this with us.

Read the interview online at this link: “Randy Maddox: John Wesley Says “Take Care of Yourself.”

“Dear friend (reader), I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit. 3 John 1:2

Have a blessed day!

Related Resources:

PathWay 2 Wholeness Bible Study

One thing is certain. There will be an even greater focus and efforts to modify the lifestyles of individuals in an effort to control health care costs. That’s because lifestyle and the personal choices that people make largely determine health status.

Obesity is now receiving the attention that smoking once did. The costs of obesity to our country is huge and growing. (Pun intended.) We all know this. The leadership of corporate America know this. The leadership of health insurers know this. Individuals know this.

Today’s Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act is another reminder of the significance of attending to our lifestyle and overall wellness in an effort to impact on the financial impact of our health status.

How we manage our stress. our eating habits and our physical activity habits impact on our body weight. Our beliefs, our values and our attitudes affect our behaviors which become our habits. Since we are spirits in our core, we must address our deepest spiritual needs and beliefs if we are to measurably modify our lifestyle, which will impact on our body weight. We must ‘connect the dots’ between key biblical principles and our health-related behaviors and our health.

Because, at our core we are spiritual, we must address the care of our spirit as part of our ‘wellness’ initiatives in our corporations, health programming and in our churches. Pastors and denominations need to get on board as key players in our fight against obesity and other lifestyle-related diseases and conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. As spiritual leaders, pastors have a responsibility to teach the members of their congregations about the connection between their spiritual health and their physical health. They have a responsibility to encourage their congregants to care for their physical health. I believe they have a responsibility to provide effective health-related initiatives within the ministries of their churches which address health – not just spiritual health, but emotional and physical health as well. And the pastors have a responsibility to care for their own health as well – to be models for members of their congregations and communities.

Slowly, leaders of churches are recognizing that they have a role to play with addressing our obesity epidemic. Kudos to Rick Warren and his staff at Saddleback church with their recent Daniel Plan initiative. The winners in the health improvements of individuals that occur will be many. Individuals will experience better health. Saddleback and their pastors will experience greater vibrancy. And, the health plans of the insured of the congregation will experience lower utilization and the associated lower costs. All this for starters.

The door has opened even wider for the church to make a difference with our country’s health care crisis.

Will the leadership of the church walk through it?