One of the most wonderful results of the movement in the Holy Spirit in healing ministry is when a particular individual or group of people start to experience the promise found in the baptism of the Holy Spirit presented in Acts 1:4-8.
When this happens, we are brought into a place of participating with Jesus Christ to minister healing to the nations. This begins to take place in your own congregation or small group by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Healing ministry is a vital component of a healthy church
Healing ministry is a vital component of a healthy church. It seeks to bring people to wholeness in Christ out of a place of brokenness and despair.
Healing ministry can be expressed through:
- the faithful work of elders praying for the sick,
- leading others to ask for forgiveness and restoration in Christ, or
- through the intense work of specialized teams equipped for healing prayer ministry.
Your church might offer special services for prayers of healing, or a special time of worship with a theme focused on the healing ministry of Jesus.
Some churches will even provide teams for prayer appointments where a team of trained people will pray for an individual.
What Happens in Healing Ministry
The tasks of those participating in healing ministry are to listen to the person and listen to Jesus. This work is done in a context of love and prayer.
Prayer ministry is not a time of counseling or a time of giving advice, but rather intentionally walking with the healing team into an encounter with Jesus Christ, who is already at work to heal an individual.
In healing prayer ministry, the idea is not to solve problems by talking them through.
Instead, the prayer ministers and the one receiving prayer listen carefully to discern what God wants to do in this time of prayer.
(Read more: 6 Ways God Speaks to Us In Prayer)
During a prayer appointment, Jesus is invited to fulfill His work in the power of the Holy Spirit and answer the call placed on our lives.
If you are local to the PRMI headquarters at the Community of the Cross in Black Mountain North Carolina, you can request a healing prayer appointment throughout the year. PRMI periodically offers a healing week where you may come for multiple prayer appointments.
Start with a Healing Ministry Team
Because of the diversity of needs for healing and giftedness for healing, developing a healing ministry team is important.
In the past, God has greatly anointed one individual to move into gifts of healing. Oftentimes, these were the great pioneers of this movement.
Without in any way denying their giftedness, we have found that God’s normal way of operating in the church is through healing ministry teams.
Healing Ministry Teams
- To work in healing ministry teams, this is the method that Jesus used and instructed His disciples to walk in (Mark 1:16-20, Luke 10:1).
- It is Jesus who does the healing, not us! A team approach helps one individual avoid the sin of pride when people are healed.
- A multi personal healing ministry team lessens the danger of those who are blessed, becoming dependent upon one person who is perceived as being the one who brought the healing.
- In all forms of healing ministry there is a need for the complete exercise of different gifts found in the Holy Spirit, for effective and ongoing healing ministry. In a prayer team, multiple gifts are manifested. For instance, one person may have the gift of discernment; another receive words of knowledge, etc.
- The healing ministry team guards against unwise intimacy developing between a solo counselor and a needy supplicant becoming reliant on a person for guidance, rather than Jesus Himself.
Often God’s love and glory are manifested when Christians work together as a unified team than in one person individually.
Six Areas of the Healing Ministry of Jesus Christ
Healing ministry is the Holy Spirit enabling us to take part in the six major forms of Jesus’ healing ministry on a day to day basis.
In the New Testament we find Jesus working in six forms of healing.
- Spiritual healing restores our relationship with God the Father and brings us into the eternal Kingdom of God. This is always Jesus’ priority in healing ministry.
- Inner healing brings restoration from the wounding effects of our own sin and being sinned against by others.
- Relational healing brings forgiveness and reconciliation into our relationships, from our personal families to races and nations.
- Physical healing gives us foretaste of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in our bodies being restored to complete health.
- Jesus’ work of removing evil spirits that have gained a foothold through our sin and are blocking the advancement of the Kingdom of God to every dimension of our reality.
- Healing of the creation restores human beings in dominion over the earth. It starts to heal the effects of the Fall and to look toward a New Heaven and a New Earth.
Why does Jesus heal us?
The answer is ultimately found in the mystery of God’s love: He redeems us and heals us simply because He loves us.
Out of this same love of God, our redemption and healing are to enable us to be active participants in Jesus’ healing work of redemption from the cross.
In brief, our healing is intended so that we may follow Jesus and become His witnesses. We see this dynamic of being saved and healed throughout Jesus’ lifetime in order to be sent.
For example, a man whom Jesus healed and delivered from demon possession was sent as a witness:
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
(Mark 5:18, NIV)
Paul writes about how we have been reconciled to God so that we may become ambassadors of reconciliation.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
(2 Corinthians 5:17-20, NIV)
When we are baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to take part with Jesus in each of these works. Jesus promised us this:
“I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father.”
(John 14:12 NET)
Theological Foundations of Healing Ministry
In a recent training video for PRMI Prayer Ministers, Rev. Rebecca Modrzynski and Mary Ellen Conners discuss the theological foundations for healing ministry in prayer.
They provide the basis for these six forms of Jesus’s healing that we may take part in when we are growing in the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Related book: Let Jesus Heal Your Hidden Wounds
In this book, you will learn how you can cooperate with the Holy Spirit to grow in healing prayer ministry.
Four Fruits of Healing Ministry
Our focus can never be just on healing ministry – that would divert us away from God’s whole redemptive purposes in Christ.
We are to engage in healing ministry so that people may be:
- Brought into complete salvation in Christ
- Empowered by the Holy Spirit
- Discipled into full maturity
- Sent out as witnesses of Jesus Christ
If you are truly called by God to engage in healing ministry, then the doors will open for you. You will find people come to you, you will not have to force doors open or seek out somebody to pray for.
At the right time, when the Spirit has rightfully prepared a person to encounter God, they will open the door for you to minister to them in truth.
Great damage can be done to individuals and the Church by people eager to be in healing ministry if they seek to force open doors for their own benefit and glory. Such zealous healing ministers are led neither by the Holy Spirit nor by Christ’s love but by their own personal interests.
The only appropriate motivation for healing ministry is a desire to follow Jesus as He leads you to experience a deep Christ-given love for people who are hurting and broken. And witness His redemptive love for them!
I’m an ordained Presbyterian minister in Santiago, Chile.
I had a powerful encounter with the Lord in mid 2018 which has dramatically altered my life. But I still loved Reformed Covenant theology! I feel a little Out of place in the Presbyterian world right now. Would appreciate the opportunity to speak with someone.
Thanks!
I have been called into healing ministry I need training
Great to connect with you Pastor. We’ll stay in touch via email and phone. Chris
I am called to healing ministry. I need training