Our Community of Care

Lay Eucharistic Ministers are trained lay ministers who visit the homebound to bring prayer and the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Prayer Chain Ministry is a group that prays for members of the congregation, their families, friends, or colleagues struggling with serious illness, crisis, or difficult life experiences.

Pay It Forward is a confidential support ministry that strives to show Christ's love by caring for one another in times of need or crisis such as illness, birth, unemployment, mourning, or divorce. This is accomplished through providing meals, transportation, and any other practical assistance.

Prayer Shawl Ministry is a small group that makes shawls in prayer as a physical sign of God's ever-present love and caring. The shawls are given to those in need of God's comfort. The group meets periodically on Sundays in the narthex to swap patterns, bless completed shawls, and pray. Please join us!

Healing Prayer Ministry
Jesus went all over Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Good News about the Kingdom, and healing people who had all kind of disease and sickness. - Matthew 4:23
– The Healing Prayer Ministry offers you the opportunity for individual prayer by our prayer teams on the first Sunday of each month at 8 a.m., and the second and fifth Sundays of the month at 11 a.m.

Before or after you receive communion, please feel free to come to the back of the sanctuary for prayers for physical or spiritual healing, life challenges, thanksgiving and gratitude for yourself and/or others. When you come to the prayer station you may stand or kneel as you feel comfortable. Please tell the prayer ministers what you wish prayed for, and they will ask if you wish to have hands laid on your shoulders or to hold hands. At this time, prayers will be lifted up. After prayers are concluded, the ministers will ask if you wish to be anointed with oil.

All prayers are kept in confidentiality.

Caring for the Body of Christ

Dedicated to nurturing mind, body, and spirit, our Parish Healthcare Ministry and the Ministry of Healing and Wholeness provide workshops and health-related resources, informative presentations, Christian healing prayer training, blood pressure monitoring, and Red Cross blood drives.

Members of our care ministry teams, Stephen Ministry, and Parish Healthcare Ministry teams have attended Healing Touch Spiritual Ministry and Christian Healing Ministries workshops to learn the principles and practice of the laying-on of hands and prayer to enhance our Christian care-giving program. The practice of the laying-on-of-hands is modeled after Jesus Christ's own ministry of healing and is a way of "communicating" the very Spirit of God to another person to facilitate healing for their highest good. The core of this developing ministry is Jesus’ mission to love, deliver, and heal (Luke 4:14-21, Matthew 10:1-8). The healing and wholeness ministry offers a balanced approach in Word and Spirit to living out God’s greatest commandment (Mark 12:33) and is rich in His mercy and grace.

During the 8 a.m. service on the first Sunday of the month, and the 11 a.m. Cross Walk service on the second and fifth Sundays of the month, a healing prayer station is prepared in a quiet area of the worship space for all who seek individual prayers for emotional, spiritual, physical or relational healing.

Red Cross Blood Drives are hosted at Good Shepherd periodically throughout the year. Watch for information in our worship bulletins and communications.