Doctor says healthy clergy needed, illness not God's will
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A UMNS photo courtesy of Church Health Center Dr. Scott Morris is the founder of the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tenn.
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Dr.
Scott Morris, a physician and United Methodist minister, is the founder
of the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tenn., which provides
affordable medical care for the working poor and homeless in the area.
The center opened in 1987 with the help of St. John's United Methodist
Church and Methodist Hospital. A UMNS photo courtesy of Church Health
Center. Photo #06705. Accompanies UMNS story #372. 6/19/06 |
June 19, 2006
A UMNS Report
By Linda Green*
A United Methodist physician who believes the denomination's
clergy are among the least-healthy professional groups in the United
States is featured on a Web-log on Time magazine's global health update site.
Dr. Scott Morris, a physician, United Methodist pastor and
executive director of the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tenn., said
pastors and church members need to realize “that the least healthy meal
you eat every week is usually at your church” when it should be the
other way around.
“The church ought to lead the way, not bring up the rear. If the
church has to serve fried chicken in order to draw a crowd, then there
is something wrong with the message.” Morris said.
Clergy health has declined to a point where attention is needed,
Morris said. Fifty years ago, Methodist clergy were in the top five
healthiest professions in America, and now they are in the bottom five
least healthy. “We cannot have a healthy church if we don’t have healthy
leadership.”
Noting that America has an obesity crisis, Morris said if an
adjustment is made for age and gender, United Methodist clergy are 20
percent heavier than the general population. “That cannot be something
that we are proud of; it has to be something that we do something
about.”
Anne Borish of the United Methodist Board of Pension and Health
Benefits said the denomination is engaging in a health and wholeness
emphasis because the role of complete health — body, mind, spirit — is
an important part of the ability of both clergy and lay to serve the
church.
Although both groups have different stress indicators, it is
harder to be a role model and serve the church if you do not have
complete health, said Borish, manager of research and information for
the board.
In an interview with United Methodist News Service, Morris
elaborated on the piece in the Time magazine blog, titled “God
Does Not Want You to Be Sick” written by Christine Gorman at
http://time.blogs.com/global_health/2006/06/scottmorris.html.
She describes Morris’ work with individuals who believe that
sickness is a part of God’s will and others who resist treatment
because of the belief that God will take care of them.
Morris said American churches today have forgotten that healing
was an important part of Jesus’ ministry and the ministry of the
disciples. Every church needs to have a health care ministry as it has a
choir and Sunday school, he said.
The Book of Acts records 19 instances of healing by the Apostles,
and churches have an obligation to have a healing ministry, he said.
“If a church ignores having a healing ministry, then it is really not
following through with the gospel.” He said each time the disciples came
together, they were expected to preach, teach and heal.
Reclaiming a ministry
The Church Health Center was founded in 1987 to “reclaim the
church’s biblical and historical commitment to care for our bodies as
well as our spirits,” Morris said.
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A UMNS photo courtesy of Church Health Center Dr. Scott Morris (right) and Mathis Ellis play basketball before the annual fund-raising race for the Church Health Center.
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Dr.
Scott Morris (right) and Mathis Ellis play basketball before the annual
fund-raising race for the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tenn.
Morris, a physician and United Methodist minister, is the founder of the
center, which opened in 1987 with the help of St. John's United
Methodist Church and Methodist Hospital. The clinic provides affordable
medical care for the working poor and homeless in the area. A UMNS photo
courtesy of Church Health Center. Photo #06706. Accompanies UMNS story
#372. 6/19/06 |
“What we do is take care of the poor and uninsured. Our mission is
all about the church and trying to get the church reconnected with what
John Wesley wanted us to be connected with,” a call to discipleship and
healing, Morris said. The founder of Methodism called himself a
physician, practiced medicine, and believed that every Methodist society
should be involved in direct, hands-on health care.
The center, which also contains a clinic and a wellness center,
provides low-income people with health care and encourages healthy
living through a holistic ministry called the Hope Healing Center. The
center receives support from the faith community and volunteer help from
doctors, nurses, dentists and others. It also works with churches,
especially African-American congregations, to help them create health
care ministries.
“We are the largest faith-based primary care clinic in the
country,” said Morris, who is also associate pastor at St. John’s United
Methodist Church, Memphis. For every dollar spent on treatment, a
dollar is spent on prevention, he said, but the center is not a free
clinic.
In the blog, Gorman notes that fatalism is an important issue in
Morris’ practice. Morris told United Methodist News Service that all too
often he and other doctors at the health center see patients who think
illness is God’s will.
“I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that it is not
(God’s) will,” he says. “God wants us to be healthy and to live long and
vital lives.”
As long as the “as long as I got King Jesus, everything is OK”
mentality exists, Morris said, there are going to be problems in taking
care of people. Churches, he said, need to be involved in health care
domestically and globally and “in taking care of the body wherever they
are.”
Resolutions on health
The United Methodist Church’s General Conference has passed a
number of health-related resolutions on the importance of health care
for all and on some of the issues that keep people from realizing this
principle. A health and wholeness committee is working to build
awareness, action and advocacy for the health-related ministries across
the denomination. Emphasis is on clergy wellness, malaria education,
AIDS orphans and health care access.
Health care in the United States faces three interrelated
problems: cost, access and quality, states the United Methodist Board of
Church and Society on its Web site. Because of deficiencies in the
current system, Americans as a whole receive poorer health care than
people in other industrial countries that spend only half as much.
The most visible problem is that of 46 million Americans who have no health insurance, the board said.
The United Methodist Book of Resolutions says the denomination
believes its mission is to continue the redemptive ministry of Christ,
including teaching, preaching and healing. Christ’s healing was not
peripheral but central in his ministry. The church, therefore,
understands itself as called by the Lord to the holistic ministry of
healing: spiritual, mental, emotional and physical.
Among the eight action items that United Methodists are called to
in a ministry of health and wholeness, the church is challenged “to
become advocates for a healthful environment; accessible, affordable
health care; continued public support for health care of persons unable
to provide for themselves; continued support for health-related
research; and provision of church facilities to enable health-related
ministries.”
Morris said Christians have difficulty connecting the mind, body and spirit.
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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