The Healer's Vocation

Participation is self-guided and directed. Interested facilitators should purchase a facilitator guide while each group member should purchase a copy of the participant guide. Each book contains space for reflection and note-taking, so each participant will want their own physical copy of the book. One individual may also choose to purchase all the books needed for a group through the publishing site; doing so will not change the per-book cost. 

The cost of the books is $15 for the participant guide and $18 for the facilitator guide, plus applicable tax and shipping. 

Participant Guidebook

Purchase The Healer's Vocation: Participant Guide

Facilitator Guidebook

Purchase The Healer's Vocation: Facilitator Guide

The Healer's Vocation is designed for anyone with a vocation to health care. If you are interested in leading a group in your local context, these tips can help you get started: 

• The recommended group size is 5–8 participants. We suggest you identify friends or coworkers with vocations to health care in your church or clinical context who you would delight in gathering. Find additional resources for starting a group under the "Facilitator Support" tab.
• Consider a friend to partner with. While you certainly can lead alone, we hope you will consider a co-facilitator. This could free you to share the work of hosting and facilitating in ways that best suit your gifts and schedules.
• Each participant needs a guidebook. The participant guidebooks are designed to be a beautiful resource to turn to again and again. The facilitator guidebooks were designed around the participant guides, with companion notes to aid the facilitator in leading the sessions.  
• Breaking bread together is important but does not need to be complicated. Participants are encouraged to gather around a meal—whether coffee and light bites or a meal of soup and bread.

The Healer's Vocation includes ten sessions and is intended for small groups to meet in-person for about 2 hours per session. The program is meant to be flexible and can be adapted to the needs of your group. 

• Ideal settings - We encourage groups to meet in homes, churches, or any space that invites warmth and connection. We recommend that groups try to avoid meeting in health care settings, academic spaces, or other places that invite a more guarded, professional, or transactional posture.
• Pacing recommendations - Groups can meet weekly, biweekly, or monthly. The program could also be used retreat-style over a few half-day meetings or a full weekend.
• Sunday school classes or church small groups - The program can be adapted for use as a Sunday School curriculum. We recommend splitting each session over two one-hour meetings. Aside from the opening and closing sessions, each session includes a natural pause, or "selah" at the halfway point of the session.  
• Online or virtual - While we encourage meeting in-person to lessen screen time, we know that online communities can be a vital form of support and connection. For a group that is meeting online, we suggest participants create a sense of shared space by planning to enjoy a common meal (i.e., dessert and coffee) while they gather virtually. 

Below you will find a sample email that you can adapt for inviting participants to your group. This same sample email is also available in Appendix A in the facilitator guidebook. 

Friends, 

I'm writing this email because we share clinical work, friendship, and even spaces of worship. I know that you want your faith to matter for your work in health care. Some of you are also looking for fellowship and conversation with other Christian practitioners. 

I want to invite you to The Healer’s Vocation, a 10-session small group for Christians in health care. The Healer’s Vocation is not a typical small group “study.” Instead, each session includes food, scripture, prayer, periods of silence, engagement with a work of art, a brief video, and plenty of space for conversation. If possible, I hope you’ll join me at [time] on [date] at [place] for the introductory session to learn more and consider whether this is something you would like to do. 

I'm eager to continue listening, praying, and healing alongside each of you.

Warmly,

(name and contact info)

The first pages of the Facilitator Guide provide tips for gathering, hosting, and facilitating your small group.  

If you are eager to explore more, the following resources may be of interest to you. We offer these resources for further study only - they are not necessary in order to lead The Healer's Vocation well. 

Note: These resources are also listed in Appendix B of the Facilitator Guidebook. 

Scripture

Genesis 18, Ezekial 43, Luke 7:36-50, Luke 24:13-35, Acts 2:42-27, Romans 12:9-21, 3 John 1

Books

Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (Crossway, 2011).

Allan Noble, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age (InterVarsity Press, 2018).

Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life (InterVarsity Press, 2017).

Eberhard Arnold, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, C.S. Lewis, and more, Called Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People (Plough Publishing House, 2016). 

Articles

L. M. Sacasas, “The Skill of Hospitality,” Comment, November 13, 2020.

Cozine A. Welch Jr., Norann Voll, Jairo Condega Morales, Seonghee Kim, Leah Libresco, “At the Welcome Table I” Plough 2019.

Ellesa Clay High, Jurisa Shirky, Claudio Oliver, Clemens Weber, Elizabeth Mambo, “At the Welcome Table II,” Plough 2019.

Emma Newgarden, “To Be a Guest: What Jesus, Odysseus, and African tradition teach about how to receive hospitality,” Plough 2021.

Shaurya Taran, “The Lisboa Café,” JAMA 2017;317(12):1213–4. 

Brewer Eberly, “Mending the Healers,” The New Atlantis 2020.

Celina Durgin, Ashley Moyse, Lydia Dugdale, “The Power of Babette’s Feast: Medical Education over Dinner,” The American Journal of Medicine 2023.

Appendix C of the printed Facilitator Guide includes additional tips for leading an art meditation.  

Here we have included some of those resources for you to explore further, if interested. 

Brief Examples of Reading a Painting

See video essayist Evan Puschak’s “Understanding Art” series under his YouTube channel The NerdWriter for excellent examples of reading a painting:

• "Leonardo da Vinci's Best Painting (Is Not the Mona Lisa)" (9 minutes)

• “When the World Became a De Chirico Painting” (6 minutes)
• “The Death of Socrates: How to Read a Painting” (7 minutes)
• “Masterpiece: The Making of Migrant Mother” (7 minutes)
• “Van Gogh’s Ugliest Masterpiece” (7 minutes)
• “The Most Disturbing Painting” (8 minutes)
• “Las Meninas: Is This the Best Painting in History?” (9 minutes)
• “Why Sargent Painted Outside the Lines” (8 minutes)

John Piper, “Too Many Settle for Too Little Bible Reading,” Desiring God, which draws on art to teach attention to Scripture.

Devotional Examples of Meditating on the Beautiful

Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt, “A Liturgy Before Looking at a Work of Art” from Every Moment Holy, Volume III: The Work of the People (Rabbit Room Press, 2023), 97–100.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons (Notre Dame, ID: Ave Maria Press, 1987).

VCS: The Visual Commentary on Scripture.

Biola, Visio Divina Lent and Advent Projects.

Articles on Beauty in the Context of the Healing Arts

Brewer Eberly, “Look, Listen, Receive: Surrendering to the Art,” JAMA 2017; 317(15):1508–9. 

Brewer Eberly, “On the True, the Good, the Beautiful, and the Oscars,” Mere Orthodoxy, 2018.

Brewer Eberly and Lydia Dugdale, “On beauty and medical ethics,” Hektoen International, 2021.

Brewer Eberly, “Let the people see what I’ve seen”: beauty, suffering, and learning to see,” Hektoen International 11(4):2019.

Brewer Eberly, “Modern Medicine and the Deathly Hallows,” Theopolis, 2020.

Devan Stahl, “The Prophetic Challenge of Disability Art,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 39(2); 2019:251–68.

James K. A. Smith, “Evading Capture: Art and the Territory of Knowing,” IMAGE 112.

Documentaries and Books

Closer to Truth, “Art Seeking Understanding” Archives.

Roger Scruton, “Why Beauty Matters,” 2009.

Russ Ramsey, Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Zondervan, 2022).

“Picture Study” in Karen Andreola, A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning (Charlotte Mason Research Company 1998), 189-197.

Appendix D of the printed Facilitator Guide includes additional tips for leading a poetry meditation.  

Here we have included some of those resources for you to explore further.

Listen to Poets Read Their Poems 

• Jane Kenyon, “Let Evening Come”
• Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”
• John O’Donohue, “Beannacht"
• Seamus Heaney, “Blackberry Picking”
• Li-Young Lee, “I Asked My Mother to Sing”

• Victory Boyd, “ii. Broken Instrument – I’ve Heard Legends”

Additional Resources

30 Poems to Memorize (Before It’s Too Late), David Kern, ed. (Concord, NC: CiRCE, 2020). See especially the introduction by Sally Thomas, “A Simple Guide to Reading Poems,” pages 1–7.

Stressed Unstressed: Classic Poems to Ease the Mind (William Collins, 2016).

Luci Shaw and Dawn Morrow, “A Liturgy Before Contemplating Poetry,” from Every Moment Holy, Volume III: The Work of the People (Rabbit Room Press, 2023), 101–102.

Wendell Berry, The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford (Counterpoint, 2013).

Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018).

Simone Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.” (pdf)

See Poetry Films, The On Being Project.

Appendix E of the printed Facilitator Guide includes these tips from Dr. Martha Carlough on how to lead a Lectio Divina.

Overview

Lectio divina is an ancient monastic method of reading the Bible. Literally, it means “holy reading.” It is an attentive and in-depth reading of scripture intended not to simply satisfy one’s curiosity about the words in scripture, but to nourish one’s faith by giving the words a chance to come alive. The reading is holy because in reading scripture we encounter the story of God.

Some describe this as reading not just informationally, but formationally. It does not negate the usefulness of in-depth Bible study, but its emphasis is on making space and time for God to speak into our lives. When practiced regularly, and with balance, openness and flexibility, it encourages a life of prayer in the everyday. It is a simple instrument that may be used to bridge the gap between our hearts and God’s heart. It represents daily contact with God’s word and fosters living prayer.

As Friar Luke Dysinger writes, “We should allow ourselves to become women and men who are able to listen for the still, small voice of God (I Kings 19:12); the ‘faint murmuring sound’ which is God's word for us, God's voice touching our hearts. This gentle listening is an ‘attunement’ to the presence of God in that special part of God's creation which is the Scriptures.”

The Steps

The steps that describe Lectio Divina most simply and clearly were written by Guigo II (1115-1198), a Cistercian monk in his Letter on the Contemplative Life (1180). It is a four-part method:

LECTIO/READING

This is the first reading. This reading or listening is very different from the speed reading which modern Christians apply to medical charts, emails, newsletters, books, and even to the Bible. Lectio is reverential listening; listening both in a spirit of silence and of awe. We are listening for the still, small voice of God that will speak to us personally—not loudly, but intimately. In lectio we read slowly and attentively, gently listening for a word or phrase that is God's word for us this day. The first reading is just for listening to the passage. Feel free to imagine the scene—the smells, the sounds, the images that come to mind. Be attentive to God’s gentle prodding. Read aloud with a desire to be addressed by God. Invite the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to see.

MEDITATIO/THINKING AND MEDITATING

This is the second reading. Once we have found a word or a passage in the Scriptures which speaks to us in a personal way, we must take it in and “ruminate” on it. The image of the ruminant animal quietly chewing its cud was used in antiquity as a symbol of the Christian pondering the Word of God. Christians have always seen a scriptural invitation to lectio divina in the example of the Virgin Mary “pondering in her heart” what she saw and heard of Christ (Luke 2:19). Reflect on the values, the words, and the actions that you find in a particular passage. Ponder. Put yourself in the story and ask where the word or phrase has touched your life. Allow it to interact with your thoughts, your hopes, your memories, your desires. Through meditation we allow God's word to become His word for us, a word that touches us and affects us at our deepest levels. The second reading is for the purpose of hearing a word or passage that touches the heart. Listen for a word or passage that touches you. When the word or phrase is found, take it in, perhaps gently reciting it during the silence.

ORATIO/PRAYER

This is the third reading. The third reading is for the purpose of “hearing” or “seeing” Christ in the text. Each ponders the word that has touched the heart and asks God where the word or phrase touches his or her life that day. This is a step towards using your imagination, will, and desires to seek God and dialogue with God. This is prayer understood both as dialogue with God, that is, as loving conversation with the One who has invited us into His embrace; and as consecration, prayer as the priestly offering to God of parts of ourselves that we have not previously believed God wants. This step was called by Gregory the Great “the spontaneous meeting of the heart of God with the heart of God’s beloved creature through the Word of God.” Pray, responding to what you have read and heard. Converse with God about the possibilities the text has opened before you.

CONTEMPLATIO/LISTENING AND RESTING

This is the fourth reading. The fourth and final reading is for the purpose of experiencing Christ "calling us forth" into doing or being. Members ask themselves what Christ in the text is calling them to do or to become this week. Rest in loving silence and receive. Listen attentively with your heart to what God may be saying. Be patient and let this unfold. This is God’s time to work. Pay attention to the inner responses you may have—doubts, fears, longing. Finally, we simply rest in the presence of the One who has used His word as a means of inviting us to accept His transforming embrace. No one who has ever been in love needs to be reminded that there are moments in loving relationships when words are unnecessary. It is the same in our relationship with God. Once again we practice silence, letting go of our own words; this time simply enjoying the experience of being in the presence of God.