Faith Community Nursing

Make your faith community a place to learn about wellness

Faith, values and religion can bring meaning to your life and also have a large effect on your health and well-being. If you follow a religion or have a spiritual practice, your faith and ways of finding meaning can help the way you view the world. If you or a family member has concerns about staying healthy, you may want to receive guidance at your place of worship. Novant Health can help you to bring your faith and your health together. We offer many models to assist congregations in their health and wellness promotion. 

Faith community nurses

Once called parish nurses, faith community nurses (FCN) offer health and spiritual care within places of worship. These nurses use their nursing knowledge integrated with and their faith practice to provide holistic care for physical, emotional and spiritual health. This specialized area of nursing is recognized by the American Nurses Association. 

Novant Health’s faith community nursing program is available to partner with a range of religious congregations, including churches, mosques and synagogues 

Faith community nurses play a number of roles in the places where they serve: 

  • Presenting health and wellness programs to congregations
  • Making referrals to local community resources
  • Managing volunteers for care teams and support groups within faith communities
  • Visiting in home and health facility
  • Advocating and educating people to make the most of their care
  • Assisting clergy as they address complex psychosocial and societal barriers to health and wellness 

Congregational health promoters

Many congregation members care about the health of their community. As a Novant Health congregational health promoter you can help congregations to establish, organize and sustain volunteer programs to promote health. Volunteers train in topics such as heart, mental and breast health. This training allows volunteers to teach others about setting wellness goals and preventing common illnesses. It is free to become a promoter and to continue in a support structure for congregational groups. 

If you would like to learn more about our faith community nurses (FCN), congregational health promoters (CHP) health ministries/mitzvah/service, contact the Novant Health location nearest you. 

Learn more about Community Faith Nursing