LOUISVILLE, Ky.-Blood pressure screenings and health counseling are part of a weekly routine at First Presbyterian Church in Billings, Mont., according to PCUSA News.

The congregation continues to make hospital visits and serve communion, flowers and sermon tapes to the ill and homebound as they expand their health-ministry program. Montana pastor, Rev. Jay Wallace, joined 35 other leaders around the nation for a conference on health ministries recently.

"Jesus' ministry was a healing ministry," Wallace said, "and that's what we're really about, bringing healing into people's lives."

Ministries such as Wallace's promote the health, healing and wholeness of individuals, families, congregations and communities, through a wide variety of programs.

"This is certainly a logical place for many churches to begin," said Mary Chase-Ziolek, director of the Center for Faith and Health and associate professor of Health Ministries at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. "I would suggest that a mature health ministry needs to also look outward towards the community. We need to look beyond our doors to get outside into our neighborhoods and adopt the public-health model in which, rather than the individual client, the community is the client."

Chase-Ziolek said health ministry is a collaboration between congregations and health-care organizations. Many churches offer nursing services as well as care teams who volunteer to offer practical, emotional and spiritual support.

"Jesus' role as a minister and a healer is our prime example," said Mary Tucker, an elder and parish nurse at 300-member First Presbyterian Church in Somerset, Ky.

As the median-age of congregants in mainline denominations increases, health ministries become essential, according to Henry C. Simmons, professor of religion and aging at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va.

"We model in our care those staples of faith that God is not finished with us yet, that God will not abandon us ever, as the Almighty is holy," Simmons said.