Advocate Parish Nurse Ministry

“Say to him: ‘long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all this is yours!’”
  —1 Samuel 25:6

As part of Advocate's Mission and Spiritual Care, the office of Advocate Parish Nurse Ministry participates in making real the vision of wholistic healing—good health to all—by partnering with congregations of all denominations and religious affiliations in an effort to embrace the integration of faith and health.

Statement of Purpose
The purpose of Advocate Parish Nurse Ministry is to nurture the human spirit through health education, spiritual support, and linking the needs of the whole person to resources within the congregation, community, and the health care system.

About Our Program
In 1984, Lutheran General Hospital, through the vision and efforts of the Rev. Granger Westberg, initiated the first Parish Nurse program. An ecumenical program from the onset, these partnerships included three Lutheran churches, two Roman Catholic churches, and one Methodist congregation.

Evangelical Health Systems developed its Parish Nurse program in 1989 with three congregations: First Congregational Church of Christ in Chicago, Kenwood United Church of Christ in Chicago, and Peace Memorial Church in Palos Park. In 1995, Lutheran General Health System and Evangelical Health System merged to form Advocate Health Care.

Today, as part of Advocate Health Care's continuum of care, the Parish Nurse Ministry is working in 29 diverse congregations. These faith communities are widely scattered throughout the Chicagoland area from West Garfield Park and Uptown Chicago neighborhoods to the suburban settings of Arlington Heights and Naperville.

Advocate Parish Nurse Ministry continues to seek health ministry partnerships. Both partners, the health care institution and the congregation must espouse the belief that physical, emotional, intellectual, and social well-being are very much dependent on a healthy spiritual core of being.

Advocate Parish Nurse Ministry is designed to build on and strengthen capacities of individuals, families, and congregrations to understand and care for one another in light of their relationship with God, faith traditions, themselves, and the broader society.

Advocate's Parish Nurse Ministry, committed to providing excellence to communities served, established the Parish Nurse Network in 2002. The Parish Nurse Network links volunteer and congregationally-based, paid, parish nurses with the resources and support of the Parish Nurse Ministry and the related services of Advocate Health Care. The purpose of the Parish Nurse Network is to provide support services (including materials), parish nurse expertise, on-going education, spiritual support, and networking opportunities to non-associate parish nurses located within the Advocate service areas.

For more information about our program, please contact:

Advocate Parish Nurse Ministry
Director, Nancy L. Durbin, MS, RNC
205 West Touhy Avenue, Suite 127
Park Ridge, Illinois 60068
847.384.3744
e-mail: nancy.durbin@advocatehealth.com

For more information about or to order the new parish nurse DVD,
The Spirit of Healing.

For a list of Parish Nurses serving their community, click here.