wfn.org | TCN: New hospital chaplain sees her ministry as equivalent to mega-church ministry

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>2998 Edition

>August 10~16, 2009

New hospital chaplain sees her ministry as equivalent to  mega-church ministry

>Reported by Lin Yi-ying

>Written by Lydia Ma

Mackay Memorial Hospital’s newest head chaplain is a woman  and a Pingpu

Aborigine. Rev. Pan Mei-hui obtained her doctoral degree in a U.S.  seminary

and has worked at Mackay for 9 years. During these years, she  worked hard to

improve educational training for chaplains, volunteer training,  and overall

atmosphere of the hospital. From the moment patients step into  Mackay Hospital

to the day they are discharged, Pan makes sure that someone from  the hospital

>is there to reach out to them.

“Simply put, I treat the 40,000 or so people who enter and  leave Mackay every

day as members of a mega-church and I do my best to pastor this  mega-church,”

>said Pan.

Pan graduated from Tainan Theological College and Seminary and was  chair of

the chaplain department at Changhua Christian Hospital from 1992  to 1995. She

was the first woman moderator of Changhua Presbytery for a while  and also

served more than 3 years at Chiayi Christian Hospital in the field  of pastoral

>care.

“I truly thank God for training me and equipping me through  important

experiences along the way so that I can handle all these  responsibilities and

challenges before me in my current job position,” Pan said.

At 54, Pan knows that her role is to be a bridge between God,  local churches,

local organizations, PCT General Assembly and Northern Synod, and  hospital

staff and patients. She considers the hospital to be  “Abba’s Garden”, and all

patients, patients’ family members, hospital co-workers are  like flowers, grass,

and trees that grow in that garden. She sees herself as a gardener  whose role is

to take care of the 40,000 people who enter this  “mega-church” every day.

Pan has revamped chaplain ministries at Mackay Hospital so that  staff can focus

on shepherding employees and patients. She believes the most  important

aspect of being a chaplain is learning how to keep company with  other people.

once this lesson is learned, other ministries will naturally fall  into place. To make

the job of a chaplain resemble shepherding a mega-church, Pan  began to

consider each hospital department as a “pastoral zone”  or “fellowship” and also

assigned one zone to every staff member for them to reach out and  care for.

Hence, hospital departments are now affectionately called  “Surgeon’s pastoral

zone”, “Internal Medicine pastoral zone”,  “Hospice pastoral zone”, etc.

Pan believes concrete actions are needed to touch people’s  hearts and lead

them to God and this is even truer for chaplains who work in  hospitals. Chaplains

must renew their love for God and experience God anew so that  their hearts can

overflow with faith, hope, and love and thus impact the lives of  people they meet

in hospitals and make hospitals a warmer place radiating  Christ’s love. This is

the only way to attract patients to God and lead them to Christ.

PCT General Secretary Andrew Chang has given a lot of affirmation  and

encouragement to MacKay Memorial Hospital Superintendent Tsai  Cheng-Ho

and Pan for their efforts. He hopes they will keep up the good  work they’ve begun

so that patients who frequent the hospital will accept Jesus as  their Lord and

Savior through interaction with hospital chaplains. Chang also  urged churches

across Taiwan to pray for chaplains who work at Christian  hospitals across

Taiwan because they often face pressures from different sides.

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