Pastor Julia Winward (center) shown at an ecumenical service with Rev. Tricia Calahan (left) and Rev. Suzanne Toro (right).
The sign read “Public Healing Service at 10 a.m. on Saturday.” It was now closer to 11, but the door was still open.
Inside the Cornwall United Methodist Church a four-person praise team was belting out hymns. There were 15 worshipers in the pews. Most of them were women.
One of them stepped up to the pulpit when the music stopped. She offered her testimony, saying that she had learned many prayers as a child but until recently she didn’t know how to pray.
She had been raised in a different faith, but was lured into this particular church by the compassion of its members. “I wanted some of what they had,” she admitted to the small congregation.
Life stories are interesting, but it was impossible to stay and get to the Sands Ring ribbon cutting in time. And the testimony was barely at the mid-point of the order of worship.
Still to come were scripture readings, Pastor Winward’s message, prayers, confession and communion. The length might have been intimidating were it not for a message in the bulletin. “You may leave whenever you feel ready,” it said. “There is no formal close to the service.”
Rev. Julia Winward started the healing service in June, and plans to continue it on the first Saturday of every month. The doors are open — not just to congregation members — but to anyone who seeks healing prayer in the name of Jesus.
Rev. Winward experienced God’s healing power as a 20-year-old skeptic.
“It took the debilitating illness of my beloved grandfather,” she wrote, “to allow others to pray for his healing…. And the people prayed! They gathered round me, laid hands on me, surrounded me with a love that streamed straight from heaven. I was annoyed. All I wanted was a prayer for my grandfather. I vowed never to come back to that church.
“Yet when I went to visit grandpa, and realized that he was completely healed from the arthritis that only a few months ago had left him immobile, God had gotten my attention.”
Rev. Winward brought a healing ministry to the Cornwall United Methodist Church. And this is a summary of what she observed. Some people were completely healed; others received the ultimate healing and joined the saints, and some were healed on the inside.
In addition to the public healing services, she is offering to make appointments with people to pray with them in private.
NOTE: The church is at 198 Main Street. The phone number is 534-2794.