Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC

Douglas Lawson, Ph.D., along with Harold Roenig, M.D., is the author of Faith In The Future: Health Care, Aging, and the Role of Religion. An ordained Methodist minister, Lawson says that there is a crisis in American health care resulting from spiraling costs and an aging population. His passion is leading him to find ways to connect the healthcare world to the Church.

His message focused on how congregations can form practical partnerships between healthcare systems, government, and philanthropic efforts to create inspiring systems of care and avert the looming healthcare crisis. He challenged the Church to be creative in responding to escalating healthcare costs that many cannot afford, especially the older population. "If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone", he said. We must be caring, loving, and other-centered churches. We are blessed financially; now let us share our resources to bring healing where there is hurt. (Dr. Lawson's additional publications include an award-winning bestseller, Give To Live: How Can Giving Change Your Life, and a video production: The Artful Asker: Give to Live.) His book contains many inspirational stories that people have shared regarding programs where "the power of religious faith has improved individual health and contributed to healthcare programs". There are 350,000 congregations with resources to tap for healthcare.

Using Duke University as a model, Lawson praised the research coming out of Duke and pointing to the positive role that religious lifestyles play in heath benefits. He cited Dr. Koenig, Duke University's pioneering faith and medicine researcher.

Giving inspiring examples of how faith communities improved the health of an aging population, he pointed to an effort of more than 70 churches with a college, a State Dept. of Health, parish nurses, and lay people who offered health education and screening opportunities to a rural population. Lawson challenged us to use our creativity and vision to find practical ways to use the resources of our religious congregations, government partnerships, and philanthropy, in helping healthcare and social service professionals provide care especially for the aging. His recommendation is: "to put faith into action". Begin now, he said, for there are great challenges ahead, to become very active in healthcare ministries: "1) train our children to respect, value, and care for the older adults in our society (through our example), and 2) work in our neighborhoods, towns, and cities to build links between our hospitals or healthcare systems and our faith communities". We can begin by investing our energy, our talents, and our faith.

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