Mercer University Partners With Local Churches to Teach End-of-Life Care

’s Georgia Baptist College of Nursing has launched an initiative to educate members of Atlanta-area churches to help others as they face death.

The project offers free support from Mercer faculty volunteers with the College of Nursing, as well as School of Medicine and College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, who provide training for church lay health advisers in palliative care.

Those advisers will be trained laypersons who help members of their congregations in need of palliative care, which is the practice of preventing and relieving suffering while ensuring the best quality of life possible for individuals with advanced, chronic and life-threatening conditions.

The response in the first weeks of the program has been overwhelming, said Dr. Janet Timms, professor of nursing and one of the program organizers.

“We did outreach to a small number of churches, but we’ve been hearing back from other congregations who have heard about the program and want to participate,” Timms said in a university statement. “We’re thrilled with the response. It’s been a delightful surprise.”

As part of the program, church members who agree to join the program in their congregations will receive training in the following topics: introduction to palliative care; ethical issues at the end of life; cultural considerations and spiritual care; communicating with patients and families about end-of-life care; loss, grief and bereavement; and care during the final hours of life.

First Baptist Church of Tucker has had tremendous success with its first few classes, said the Rev. Randy Shepley, the church’s head pastor and a class attendee.

“When someone dies, we want to help, but sometimes we don’t know the right thing to say, sometimes we don’t know what to do, and this class has been an opportunity to learn those things and it has been tremendous,” said Shepley, a 1993 Mercer graduate and a doctoral candidate at Mercer’s McAfee School of Theology. “To sit with someone as they transition is a priceless, holy moment. It is not an easy moment but is priceless."

Shepley has experienced it as a pastor on many occasions, and was taught many of the concepts of end-of-life care in his master’s training at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. However, Shepley said, taking the latest concepts of a new field – palliative care – and applying them in a way that involves church laypersons is a new concept.

Through an initial university-funded grant, faculty facilitators are holding classes at four churches,and hope to have 85 congregants trained by this summer. The response has led the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing to apply for additional funding to expand the program.