What is Healing Touch?

Healing Touch is a relaxing, nurturing energy therapy.  Gentle touch helps to re-store balance and promotes well-being.  Healing Touch works with your energy field to support your body’s natural ability to heal.  It is safe for all ages and com-plements standard medical care.  It is holistic in nature, affecting all dimensions of the human energy system – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

What is Healing Touch Prayer Ministry?

Healing Touch relies to a certain extent on the intention of the practitioner.  What better intention than to serve God’s vision of wholeness?  The ministry is staffed by parishioners who have been trained to practice Healing Touch in pairs as a simple form of prayerful intercession.  We begin every session with prayers and a deliberate invocation of God’s healing presence. Our intention is that you will receive “Christ’s healing touch” to make you whole in body, mind, and spirit.

How might Healing Touch benefit you?

• deepens spiritual connection
• reduces stress
• calms anxiety, depression
• decreases pain
• strengthens the immune system
• enhances recovery from surgery
• prepares for and eases transition at end of life
• complementary care for neck and back problems
• supports cancer care
• eases acute and chronic conditions

What do you need to know about Healing Touch Prayer (HTP)?

• Sessions last from 30 minutes to an hour.
•  HTP is offered at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, in individual homes, hospitals, nursing homes, and hospice.
•  HTP complements regular medical care. Do not stop medical care without consulting your doctor.
•  HTP is confidential. Your name and personal information will be held in strictest confidence.
•  HTP is normally offered while the recipient lies clothed on a massage table. Sometimes, however, we work with recipients resting in beds, recliners or chairs, as fits the situation.
•  Healing music, often live, normally accompanies Healing Touch Prayer. See the separate description for Music for Healing Ministry.
•  Your immediate response to HTP may be quite unique. Most people leave with a deep sense of relaxation and well-being, of having been deeply and unconditionally loved. Some, however, are energized, and others experience intense emotion, or even some physical discomfort, as the healing process unfolds.
•  Research has shown no harmful effects from Healing Touch.

How can you gain the most from Healing Touch Prayer?

• Tell the prayer ministers what physical, emotional, or spiritual concerns have led you to ask for Healing Touch Prayer.
• Report any discomfort that you notice during the session.
• Remain gently and prayerfully aware during the session.
• Drink plenty of water afterward, refrain from or limit alcohol consumption, and allow time for rest and processing, if you can. 

Appointments for Healing Touch Prayer are made by contacting Suzanne Stoner (suzanne@stpaulsfay.org; 442-7373 ext. 19).