The Acorn Christian Healing Foundation was founded by Bishop Morris Maddocks and his wife Anne to encourage Christian healing to become a normal part of the life and ministry of the church. We seek to bring the touch of Christ to a broken world through listening, healing and reconciliation.

Listening

Listening is the most basic and yet profoundest gift we can give to others. Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the Hospice Movement said "People will say more in a climate of listening." We have found this to be true and when we value what others have to say we give them dignity and honour and an invitation to recover their true humanity. Consequently we have taken our listening training resources to churches, hospitals and prisons, schools and street pastors and to front line reconciliation initiatives in Northern Ireland and South Africa.

Healing

Healing is that dynamic see-saw action between care and cure. It is a grace partnership of the amazing power of God to do wonders and also to work patiently through the skills of health professionals and a range of caring therapies. We do not see a competition but rather a collaboration between medicine and prayer. Acorn therefore has long built bridges of co-operation and mutual resourcing between these two disciplines and has long been involved in caring fro the carers.

Reconciliation

All listening and healing is in fact an invitation to walk into newness of life. This often means that we confront those things we have been running away from or face the new opportunities and challenges that either my return to health or my loss of function has brought me. This is the very heart of reconciliation and it is the most radical form of healing. It is about dealing with the unattended agenda in the hope of restoration or being given the grace to live as best I can with what cannot be fixed or healed.

This is why Acorn is so honoured to be a part of Wholecare. It is an opportunity to develop life in that overlap where health professionals and Christian endeavour can offer a rich context for renewal of individuals and institutions alike.

Russ Parker, Aug 08