William DeArteaga: Every Christian a Healing Evangelist

Dear pastors, priests and religious leaders:

It is the beginning of the year and you are probably in the midst of planning enrichment activities and workshops for your congregation. I would ask you to consider if any of the following teaching and workshops would be good for your congregation:

My most popular workshop is called “Every Christian a Healing Evangelist” and its focus is to empower lay persons to do effective healing ministry, and use that ministry evangelistically. That is, if someone in the workplace is sick of hurting, the lay person can immediately offer to lay on hands for healing, and after proclaim the Gospel which has just been demonstrated (Heb 2:1-4). Further, I teach and encourage the lay persons to go the roads and byways (and flea markets) and set up “prayer stations” where healing and the Gospel are offered to the passing public.

The workshop combines insights from our Pentecostal brethren who stress that every Christian has authority to heal, and many of the insights of Mrs. Agnes Sanford, with the traditions of Anglicanism in the anointing of oil and Eucharistic healing. Please contact Fr. Tony Seal of St. Andrews of Endicott, NY as a reference on how effective this workshop has been in his congregation.

Another teaching and workshop I do is “The Healing Theology of Agnes Sanford.” This will cover the amazing ministry of Agnes Sanford, who was the Apostle of healing to the mainline churches from the 1940s to the 1970s. She developed the ministry of inner healing, originally as a prayer of Holy Communion intercession. Exercises will include practice in long distance and telephone healing prayer, and the workshop will end with a Holy Communion “prayer huddle.”

Lastly, I offer a specialized teaching and workshop, “The Anglican Healing Tradition.” This covers the heroes of the Anglican churches who pioneered the recovery of the healing ministry, all the way from the writer of the 1st Book of Common Prayer, through 20th Century pioneers such as the James Moore Hickson and the Rev. Pearcy Dearmer through to contemporary ministries such as Leanne Payne and Fr. Kenneth McAll.