Although much can be said of what was lost during the COVID-19 shutdown, sometimes God has a bigger picture in mind that propels his work forward. Such is the case with the healing ministry of the International Order of Saint Luke. The ministry, which began in the 1930s, faced its own pandemic challenges like the rest of the world, but took the opportunity to expand itself online.

The Rev. Sarah Bronos, a retired Episcopal priest currently serving as director of online healing ministries for the OSL, recalls that a suggestion was made to adapt to the changing environment. This move solved another dilemma for members, one of a lack of geographical proximity.

The Rev. Sarah Bronos

“What happened is at the beginning of COVID, we found that some of our members were very geographically distant from a local healing community,” she said. “So we were already looking at how we could incorporate these people into a healing community virtually.”

North American Director Josh Acton, who will join Bronos in speaking at the OSL National Conference in October in Vancouver, Washington, reached out to her about starting the ministry. A foundational study was conducted, and soon the ministry was moved online where anyone could access and participate.

“The Lord gave me a vision for a website, which would become a global opportunity for people to come in, to have prayer – an online center for healing prayer,” Bronos explained.

The website, found at onlinecenterforhealingprayer.com, which she created after quickly studying up on WordPress through a Google how-to, has a calendar for virtual healing services, a virtual corkboard where visitors can post notes for prayer and the recent addition of prayer rooms manned by a team of intercessors.

“Whether you’re in India, Australia or anywhere in the U.S., basically anywhere around the world, you can Google, ‘I need prayer for healing,’ and eventually the algorithms will hopefully send you to the OSL online Center for Healing Prayer,” Bronos said.

In-person prayer is also happening again, and she said the healing ministry is “flourishing.” Here in Central Florida, she counts two or three new healing communities that have completed the 26 Healing Miracles of Jesus foundation course, as well as existing chapters in local congregations.

In 1995, Bronos relocated from Miami to All Saints Church in Winter Park, where she began holding weekly healing ministry with local pastors and even doctors sending patients to receive prayer. She had her own experience with healing after a horse-riding accident in her 20s that put her in a body cast for six months caused residual, compounding pain in her 50s. During a healing service, she was healed, and that healing was sealed as she told others about it.

“I clearly heard the Lord saying, ‘To seal this, you have to witness that this is my healing,'” she recalled. “So I went in to care that day and kind of told everybody, ‘The Lord healed me last night.’ And I never, ever had a remembrance of the pain again.”

Knowing full well the power of a God who heals, Bronos has an excitement for how the growing ministry, with its new online component and influx of volunteers, will continue to affect lives and give glory and honor to God. She knows he’s behind every advance.

“The Lord is doing the work,” she said. “He’s expanding the tent, amazingly. And we just sit back and watch it.”

Churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida with a healing ministry from OSL include: St. Mary’s, Belleview; St. Barnabas, Deland; Holy Presence, Deland; All Saints, Enterprise; St. Thomas, Eustis; All Saints’, Lakeland; Shepherd of the Hills, Lecanto; Good Shepherd, Maitland; St. Edward’s, Mount Dora; St. Paul’s, New Smyrna; Ascension, Orlando; Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando; Holy Child, Ormond Beach; Jesús de Nazaret/Christ the King, Orlando; St. James, Ormond Beach; St. George, The Villages; St. Gabriel’s, Titusville; St. Paul’s, Winter Haven; All Saints, Winter Park.