Sara Rick

First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Litchfield

This is the message on the opening page of the website of Sara’s church:
May our faith in Jesus Christ equip us in service to the world to offer a faith you can use in everyday life.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, welcome to First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Litchfield. May God continue to bless this family of faith so we may continue to be a blessing to others in ways both familiar and new. Please join us to learn more about FELC by visiting us on a Sunday morning or come in and have a cup of coffee or hot chocolate with us during the week. We have a rule that whoever walks in the door, someone greets them and treats them with the utmost important respect. Come, like Lord Jesus, and be our guest.

Sara Rick, RN, FCN, is a nurse on the St. Cloud Hospital Neuroscience/Spine Unit. She also is a nursing instructor for Rasmussen College Practical Nursing Student program and working on her Master’s in Education through Capella University.

Her church’s mission above talks about using one’s faith in everyday life. When Sara decided to add the role of Faith Community Nurse she wrote, “I feel strongly about completing the course. I believe the course will help me grow spiritually, professionally and spiritually.” She took the FCN Foundations five-day course last April through the Twin Cities Faith Community Nurse Network. She chose to drive back and forth to St. Paul from her home in Litchfield and commute for the class. She made a new friend at class when she met another local RN, Angela Johnson, RN, now a FCN at St. Joseph’s Church in St. Joseph. Angela joins Marjorie Henkemeyer, RN, MA, FCN, who is a FCN at St. Joseph’s. Sara applied for and received a scholarship from the Central MN Parish Nurse Committee for her class. She has taken on this new role as a volunteer FCN at her church and feels there is a much potential for growth of the role there as her church is starting to incorporate parish nursing and wellness for the congregation. Sara says 3-6 people meet from her church to discuss plans and goals including other nurses and a pharmacist. Her main work now is blood pressure screening and using table tents to publicize health information for the congregation. Other nurses at First Evangelical have been involved in wellness in other areas too. They have a prayer blanket program, each high school grad gets a quilt made by members, there is a rehab program for youth, all new baby’s get a baptismal box with a prayer blanket, a cross (a holding cross made by men of the congregation), and a candle in a beautiful keepsake wooden chest made by the men.

Sara says she is limited with what she can do now with two young children, jobs, and school and will change and build over time. Having a group of other nurses and interested people to plan and share things really is a joint effort to fulfill the mission of the church of making their faith work in everyday life together.

Sara would be happy to talk with anyone interested in being a FCN.