EP. 162 Cancer Care Ministry: Support, Hope, and Healing W/Pastor Justin Greene and Mary Young from Salem Heights Church

Mike:

Hello. Hello. Hello, speakers of truth. I wanted to take a moment to let you know that there is still time to register for our annual ABC Called to Council Conference happening May in Fort Worth, Texas at Doxology Bible Church. In this year's encouraging conference theme, If God is for Us from Romans chapter eight with our pre conference theme Counseling Through God's Attributes.

Mike:

In this year's plenary teachers are Paul Tripp, Jeremy Pierre, Jeremy Lelik, and John Henderson. And we're really excited about this year's track options as well. We've got mental health, which will be biblically unpacking diagnoses like OCD, schizophrenia, gender identity, and many more. Our other track will be trauma through eight sessions. The track teachers will equip counselors with a basic level for perceiving, thinking, and responding to the experience of trauma.

Mike:

You can check out more information at the website. Other tracks like Counseling Children and Teens, Fundamentals of Biblical Counseling, Common Sexual Issues, and for our pastors and church leaders, have a track just for you, which will be pastors and church leadership, helping equip you in three different levels, the personal level, the ministry level, and then effective leadership. And our other tracks include understanding emotions like shame, guilt, and regret, and our eighth track, spiritual abuse. You can register now at www.calledtocounsel.com/register. If you can't make it in person, no worries.

Mike:

We will be live streaming the conference, all the plenary sessions, and worship. And this year's live streaming track will be understanding emotions, guilt, shame, and regret.

Justin:

Welcome to speak the truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church and counseling and discipleship.

Mike:

Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm back in studio. And like I've been saying for the last couple podcasts, my studio has moved to Salem, Oregon.

Mike:

So I'm still at the Made to Minister Conference twenty twenty five where the topic is our ultimate treasure. And I am joined in this episode with Justin Green and Mary Young. How are y'all?

Mary:

Great. Thanks. Amazing.

Mike:

Great. Great. I've got these two on because they're gonna be sharing a new ministry initiative here at Salem Heights as they both have been cancer survivors. And these two are gonna share this ministry, how it's come about in their own personal experiences with being cancer survivors and what the Lord has done through that. And so with that, Justin, you want to share a little bit of your journey and then Mary, you want to follow suit?

Mary:

Absolutely.

Justin:

Yeah. So just unpack the journey that we got to, if we're going to describe the ministry. Before Mary and I met, she's been working at the church here as a ministry assistant. But before she came on, I had known her story just a little bit, having gone through cancer and

Mike:

Before you had a story?

Justin:

Yeah. No, before she came on to work, because she's actually working as a ministry assistant at the church. She works and helps me get my life organized and then has helped our church be able to develop this ministry, the cancer care ministry that's going on here. But we knew our stories first. So I had, or my wife had been sharing with Mary some of what I had gone through.

Justin:

So stage four colon cancer by all rights should have been terminal. My oncologist at the end of the journey said, Hey, you're the first one with that diagnosis to make it out of our clinic. And so six percent chance of making it five years. They discovered in the process of the scans with that year two that I had a separate cancer completely disrelated to the colon cancer in my spine. That one also could have been fatal.

Justin:

It hadn't traveled to my brain, but that's typically the path it would take. And so between the chemo, radiation, and surgeries that went with that, the Lord has allowed me to be completely cancer free. Wow. Yeah. And and yet part of the journey still remains.

Justin:

The scars from that process are still part of my journey. And so we were sharing some of that. Mary and I were at the very beginning, and there's some similarities when you go through chemo and things to your day to day existence. Just being able to remember where you parked your car gets a little more complicated when you're taking chemo. And so we were joking around about that, but really formed a friendship over, hey, what would it look like to minister to people who had some of these experiences that we had?

Justin:

Because there was no place for us to just go and share that stuff without burdening people, without feeling like a burden. And yeah, that actually proceeded us working together is that story and wanting to minister together, so. That's awesome, Mary. And so what was your experience?

Mary:

I think I was diagnosed the same year actually that Justin was in late twenty seventeen. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, And it began with a very insignificant, Oh, we found this small thing, and it shouldn't be a problem. We'll do a very easy surgery, and we'll take care of it. And it kept becoming more complicated and more complicated. In 2018, I think I had four surgeries.

Mary:

And after the surgeries, they said, Oh, while we did that, we found an invasive tumor and it's very aggressive. And so we would like you now to go through chemo. And so in 2018, I had, it was just a year of treatments. I had four surgeries, I had chemotherapy, I had a blood transfusion, and then after chemo, I had infusions for another six months, and then six years of medication. So that has been my journey.

Mike:

Wow, that's quite a journey. Yeah. Wow. So both of you experiencing very varying levels and degrees, just the treatment and how you try to get well relying on God's common grace to try to work through this. And just even looking at the statistics for you to be the anomaly to this statistic Yeah.

Mike:

And to see God's work in that. And then, Mary, even what you're sharing in from that, the Lord is now using it to launch this ministry at Salem Heights. Share a little bit about that.

Mary:

Isn't God good when he does that? Yeah. I just am so grateful at his goodness in my life that he can take something so incredibly difficult and use it to glorify him and that I get to be a part of that and so, the opportunity to take those things that we can now laugh about brain fog and.

Mike:

Yeah, they're not funny.

Mary:

No, and just the afflictions that happen to anybody that's going through cancer, those feelings of fear that come and go, and the anxiety, and the questions, and the doubts that we possibly have never experienced outside of this, that we're now having, even in our relationship with God. And it's disconcerting, because we've never had some of these experiences before. And so to be able to go through them with the grace and peace of God and then that He allows us to help others go through that is a beautiful thing. I'm very grateful.

Mike:

And so with this, obviously y'all's breakout is going to be sorry, some texting came through in the

Justin:

yard. But

Mike:

y'all's breakout session is just obviously focusing on identifying the consistent markers that shape this process because, and I'm sure we'll get into this here in just a moment, to some degree, there is a unique suffering that we all have. But there's also a shared suffering. Paul is example, for example, he's encouraging Timothy. In two Timothy, we're like, we're to call it sharing each other's suffering. And so what you guys had in your own testimony of suffering, like you started off, Justin, and sharing how you guys have come together.

Mike:

And then so you've shared in that suffering to now launch something churchwide, that's allowing other peoples to struggle to take their unique suffering. But as believers, there's this common suffering, right? Yeah. In terms of what it does to the soul, like what you were talking about, Mary, the fears, the these things that we never used to have to struggle with now seem to be like a daily struggle and trying to process those things. And how do we not only process that to try to get through the day, but how do we reconcile that with my relationship with the Lord?

Mike:

And how do those two things come together? Because now I'm reduced to my limitations. And what we know from Scripture and the theology of suffering that we see in Scripture is that human suffering really does expose the extent of what we truly believe to in in different degrees. And so to have a ministry because the truth is, I haven't honestly heard of any churches up until this podcast. I haven't heard of any churches that have had a specific ministry for cancer survivors.

Mike:

Now, before we hit the record button, we were talking about some programs, material stuff that most churches use like Grief Share, which you guys mentioned, and Justin will share here in just a moment, some resources that they use. But I think this is part of the personal ministry of the word that as the body, when we open spaces to let people share in their suffering, man, to bring those unique pieces of suffering together and share that with each other in a body and what that demonstrates in a community. Any thoughts on that, Justin, just as we

Justin:

Yeah. As you were sharing, I think there there are some things that that we experience across the board as humans that lead to wisdom. And I think you were to ask anybody, has anybody here had pain? You could say that in the grocery store. And people are gonna say, yeah, they have.

Justin:

What have you learned? How do you deal with it? What kind of pain are you talking about? And I think until you get to specifics, people don't really know if they have a plan or if they think they can survive it. I think there's a couple of things in my mind that kind of, as you were sharing, jump out at me.

Justin:

If if I'm around a whole bunch of people that play sports and I talk to somebody about, has anybody here survived breaking a leg? And they could tell you about the process. Oh, yeah. You're gonna make it. That's what they'll tell me at the beginning.

Justin:

You're gonna make it. I've broken leg. Proof. Here

Mike:

I am.

Justin:

Yeah. This is what I went through. And then they give you the specifics. Yeah. Broke my leg.

Justin:

I went through this process. This is how much time I had to spend at home. This is how much time I had to recover. This is the surgery I had to go through. You're gonna be okay.

Justin:

But when it comes to certain aspects of suffering, there's a lot of people that will say, I don't have any idea if you're gonna make it. I don't have any hope. Yeah. And part of us part of suffering is looking for those people who will be able to say, not only have I been there, but this is the resource that the Lord gave me to walk me through that process. What we were trying to do, as Mary and I were talking about this, was provide a resource in an area where a lot of people are afraid to say, oh, you're gonna make it.

Justin:

With a broken leg, almost everybody in the room will say, yeah. I know somebody that's gone through that. You're gonna make it. When you say the word cancer, people just leave the room. Yeah.

Justin:

They're like, I don't wanna speak to this. I'm real sorry. I got work to do somewhere else, or I'm gonna go do chores.

Mike:

You might as well just say something someone just died because you have about that much comfort and hope to offer somebody when they say that.

Justin:

For for most of us, I don't wanna speak for Mary, but I'll say for my generation, you'd come home after school and watch the after school special. It was about some guy taking chemo that dies at the end, and there's no hope for you.

Mike:

Yeah.

Justin:

I didn't want that to be the only information that people would run into at the church. And in particular, because both of our stories did have a process there where it was great hardship, but also the Lord has just magnified and has revealed himself in a profound way in our lives. And we wanted to be able to impart that to other people as well, that the Lord is near and he's gonna meet you in this mess, he will. You're gonna delight in the things you learn about him in this process. It does not feel like it right now, but he will meet you.

Justin:

And that's the confidence I have. The doctor, the great physician is here and he's gonna take you through this. Just let him. It doesn't always mean healing in the same way. It does mean nearness and you'll see him.

Mike:

Yeah. That I appreciate that because and, Merritt, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. Is that with that, Justin, it's we do wonder, man, am I gonna make it? And that's my question for y'all as far as the ministry is concerned when you offer it, where it's not just for those who are survivors, it's literally for people who are in real time. And I just got this diagnosis and prognosis like yesterday.

Mike:

And I don't know what that looks like. To your point a moment ago, is hope and healing may not mean that you're going to be the anomaly that breaks the statistic. However, you're going to know what real living hope is. Yeah. So last episode, that's what Pete and I were talking about.

Mike:

And that's what really ultimately, this sort of ministry provides is for those who, when they hear that news, whatever hope that they had is now just dissipated because of the news that they just got. And and how do I live my life when my identity was found in the life that I thought I had, now is I don't I have no clue whether or not I'm gonna be able to have that, if it's gonna be taken from me. And there's this fear, this anxiety, all of this stuff, besetting depression, whatever may take course in the individual. But being able to have a space where so no matter where you are in that journey, come and be a part of this. And the process truly is hope.

Justin:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think as Mary and I were talking about the different aspects of this ministry, the thing we wanna be able to highlight for folks is just putting their hand in the Lord's. And, yeah, I I feel like that's one of the markers of the ministry as a whole. But in the programming that we're trying to do with folks is to say, hey, this is what the scriptures actually say.

Mike:

Yeah. Good. Speaking of program, and before we hit the record button, we talked a little bit about this. Yeah. So you guys have it sounded like a little bit piecemealed a little bit of this where we've got some videos from this and we've got this, but then we have our own personal experiences.

Mike:

So what's going to drive your time together in this ministry?

Justin:

Well, that's a great question. We're just seeing the fruit of this come together. So I think what would be great is for me just to set up

Mike:

Yeah.

Justin:

The heart that we were trying to have going into it. And then Mary has really done a brilliant job of being able to cobble together these resources that put everything on display and then also put together some programming that flushes out what the vision was. And it is really a group that has a unique Salem Heights flavor to it just because we didn't find anything out there.

Mike:

I'm gonna put that in the show notes Salem Heights flavor.

Justin:

I only because I'm sure there's gonna be a better way out there, but we're searching for somebody that has walked this trail before and couldn't find that the exact thing we were looking for. But the goal was to be able to do two things. When the people that we are talking to have been going through cancer, there's two aspects to it. There's the fear of the immediate, the presence of cancer. What am I gonna, how am I gonna get to doctor's appointments?

Justin:

How am I going to survive this? And then there's the emotional side of just this is impacting my relationships. I I don't know if it's the medications or just me, but I'm really depressed and I'm overwhelmed. Does anybody else know what this experience feels like? And so giving them partnership, but also some people that could help them with practical needs.

Justin:

You can't mow the lawn when you're so physically oppressed by all the medication. In fact, you can't even be around people sometimes. And so who will clean my house? Who will help me with basic needs? We wanna provide that, a ministry where people would say, I'll sign up and I'll go mow lawns.

Justin:

I'll clean houses. I'll take care of running to the grocery store, I'll fill out paperwork, do research for you when your brain is foggy. Just gonna be practical need meters. And then the other part is developing a group where those that are being impacted by cancer would be able to share with each other, but also those that are caring for folks that have cancer would be able to share their own story. Because a lot of times they're the missing patient.

Justin:

They're sitting right beside the one that's impacted, but not experiencing the same kind of comfort from other people. And Mary took some of those things and really did a ton of work to build in a program, built a program using a couple of different resources. But I'd love for her to be able to share the stuff that she found and what will she put together.

Mary:

So alongside the practical care ministry, we have started the Oasis Cancer Support Groups, and we offer those twice a month. And we've talked a lot today about this idea of hope and cancer really challenges our ability to hold on to hope. And I've done four group meetings now with all a wide variety of people that are going through different aspects of cancer. And in every single conversation, there's been this theme and this idea and this struggle with hope. And these cancer support groups is an opportunity for people to come together and cancer attacks hope, but it also causes isolation and it causes us to feel like our family members, our friends, nobody understands what we're going through and our world becomes very small.

Mary:

And so in an opportunity to, in a collective way gather together with people that understand they may not be going through exactly what I'm going through, but a lot of the themes are exactly the same. And so they have an opportunity to be understood, to be heard, and to not feel alone. And there's something I watch in the process of people being able to share their cancer story and what they've been going through. I watch their body language and I watch them relax in their seat and get in touch with where their emotions are that day. And so we have this opportunity to share, to be heard and understood.

Mary:

But then also in that, God works and the Holy Spirit is present. And together we lift each other's eyes up to the Lord in that conversation because even in second Corinthians that Justin has referred to Paul says in our afflictions we have in we are can barely endure and to the point despairing for our life. And then a couple verses later he says, but we have set our hope on him. And so in those groups together we're sharing and yet, we're enduring and we know that it's almost to the point of despair at times but together, we're setting our hope on him and that so that's the purpose for those groups and I think that meets a need in a way that we just can't find in the community.

Mike:

I think that's good. And you mentioned I see, Justin, you've got your Bible open. For whatever contribution you're gonna make scripturally there. To your point, Mary, like, five of chapter chapter one, first second Corinthians. For we as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

Mike:

Yeah. And that's, like you mentioned, I love the way that you put that collective effort of there's those that are a little further along, whereas maybe that hope is they're experiencing more of that comfort, where you got other people on the other side, that entering into Christ's suffering is something that's completely new to them. They didn't realize even as Christians that this is what Paul's talking about when it means to be sharing in Christ's sufferings that we're not thinking about our cancer. That's part of the fall. And Christ took all of that, the weight of the sin of the world, not just individuals, but the weight of the world.

Mike:

And just like that, all of a sudden becomes far more concrete in my suffering. And then to be able to share that collectively, and to help, as you mentioned, to reorient that gaze, to set that gaze. And I love the way that Paul says that in the Greek too, because that's fixed. It's like, a reorientation that I'm setting my eyes on something. It's the object of my struggle has changed.

Mike:

I'm now looking at the treasure of my hope instead of the struggle itself. The cancer, whatever it is, whatever that object is of suffering, I've now removed that object and I'm putting my hope in orientation where it belongs. So I I love how you put that. That was great.

Justin:

Yeah. Paul wraps that whole little section up in verse seven with, and our hope for you is firm because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in comfort. And I think the when you're talking about it being firm, yeah, it's absolutely firm, but it's speaking from one sufferer to another. So the important part in second Corinthians one there is it's not just somebody randomly saying this, not Paul, hey, I journaled a few things when I was crashed on an island and got bit by a snake. No.

Justin:

He's saying by the holy spirit, hey, I wanna lean in right here and I want you to know something that's absolutely gonna gonna happen. He's gonna meet you in the mess. And I'm gonna say this to you because he met me in a unique way in the messes spectacularly met me there and he's not done. And he's gonna meet you there too. He doesn't even have to qualify it.

Justin:

He just has such confidence. It's gonna happen. You watch. I'll just keep your hand up, grab the Lords, and he'll walk you through this. And I think that's what we wanna be able to provide for people when they come to a group is, hey, this is how he met me.

Justin:

The the Lord meets you right in the middle of that mess in a unique way. And the people that have gone through it will say, man, across the board, he met me here, even if I'm still struggling. And we wanna be able to have those voices magnified.

Mary:

I think that the beauty of the group dynamics also is that in sharing your own story, it isn't that we have to tell you all the lessons that you're gonna learn or give advice on what you're going through, but it's as people listen to each other's stories that those ways in which God has taught them and worked His hope into their lives comes out. And so we benefit and we learn just from hearing their story. They don't have to say, this will happen to you. But our hope rises as we listen to how God has worked in other people's lives.

Mike:

Yeah. It's really good. And just to wrap up, because we were talking about processes and stuff. Here's what I love about what you guys are doing is you're not waiting for everything to be polished in terms of process and program or material. It's putting things together that fit the need and figuring out as you go because ministry needs to happen.

Mike:

So I appreciate that.

Justin:

Yeah. And I think the key thing was we wanted to be able to have scripture be our guide, but also there's some practical things that we've built into that. The meeting is designed in such a way that it's gonna meet the needs that are in the room. And so I don't know how Paul would have opened his groups on Crete or anything like that. We have a little acronym for ours, help is what it but we start with humor.

Justin:

One of the things that happens in these groups is people are coming in and they're dour. It's all needles and nastiness. Right? That's all you get out of cancer. But there are some moments where if you can just be in there with some other people that have gone through the same thing, most of the folks in the room have gone from completely quiet lives, separate, they're just appropriate, they're not putting everything on Facebook, they're just hidden.

Justin:

And the next thing you know, everything in their life is exposed to these doctors. There's no, there's nothing private at all. And at some point you go from complete embarrassment to it's just comedy. And you can only share though some of what you've just experienced with a limited number of people before you're that weird person. Right?

Justin:

So in this room, you can actually share or these with these people, can say, man, I just went through this. I, in real life, just met my the nurse that was walking me through radiation at a public event. And I'm like, okay.

Mike:

Hello? You've literally seen everything.

Justin:

I know. I've literally like, hey. Can I still shake your hand? Can we just walk away and not say anything? Yeah.

Mike:

And Yeah.

Justin:

Thankfully. Yeah. Friends now for life. Yeah. But that's a unique part of the story.

Justin:

Only the other people in the group are gonna be, oh, man. Yeah. I went through that exact same thing or those embarrassing moments. But also being able to share that that there is still humor even in the mess. I still have a sense of wanting to connect with other people and be able to enjoy.

Justin:

There's joy even on cloudy. So where do you find it? And I think it takes folks that are leaning into that moment to say, oh, man, this is the the little diamond I just found today in this kind of muddy place. And the humor, they show the essentials of their their journey. That's the e l.

Justin:

No. I just went blank. Life lesson. Yeah. That's the life lesson.

Justin:

So, yeah, we actually just go through scripture and then prayer. And so

Mike:

That's really good.

Justin:

Help is the acronym that kinda drives the bus for the meetings. But we really believe that at the end of each one of these seasons, we're gonna see great stories that are coming out

Mike:

of the room. That's great. Has it launched? It has launched. Okay.

Mary:

We've had the first couple weeks ago, and then just this morning was our was another time that we gathered.

Mike:

Justin, I want to go back to something you were sharing about your HEALTH acronym, the humor piece. A friend of mine, he's a little bit older than me. He actually had prostate cancer as well, and had some mean surgeries. And his humor, like he, like everything that you just said, he shared like these phases of the embarrassment, the shame feeling. You know how Hebrews four talks about completely undone and naked before God?

Justin:

Yep.

Mike:

Yeah. Like in the human sense is like things that you would never want to unearth, like are completely exposed to these people, these professionals. Yeah. It was needles and it was mess and but to hear him now laugh about the things that, know, he now there's nothing that's like where he feels embarrassed or awkward, because all of that was taken then. Yeah.

Mike:

So even in in all of the cancer, that's actually one thing where humor, like now my life is brought a level of humor that I never knew before. But it took me to experience this embarrassment and unfortunately, to some extent, shame in different ways. Yep. Where now he he has a hope. It's just been very encouraging to say.

Mike:

So everything you just said there just was affirmed in what he shared with me. And so I appreciate that. Mary, any final thoughts that you would have just to encourage those in varying church contexts where maybe they're aware of maybe some pastors or churches where they've got leaders where they realize they've got some cancer survivors, they've where they realize like, upon listening to this podcast episode that, and actually, that's something that we could probably launch in our church, like maybe have a soft launch, or a pilot group. What would you encourage them in terms of process or markers that you could encourage them to start with? As you guys have put this together, as Justin said, you were the architect to the program and putting everything together.

Mike:

What would you say to encourage any of those who realize that maybe we could do this ourselves?

Mary:

First of all, would say cancer is in your congregations and it is growing and growing in a rate that we just can't even fathom. The statistics are just beyond our ability to imagine. And so the need is there and we know that God will give us the ability to meet those needs and to minister in a way that glorifies him. There are some good resources out there, Our training that we are using to train our congregation and our body to walk alongside others in a practical way stemmed from our journey of hope. They provide and print materials and train you in order to train others.

Mary:

And that's available out there. And so that's a good starting place.

Mike:

Journey of hope. Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. And they provide good materials just to be able to train you on what you can experience walking alongside somebody, video materials.

Mike:

So it's kind of like how Grief Share provides like some of that just supplemental material to help if you want to launch Grief Share, obviously, because that's a little more established, but something that's a little more nuanced like cancer, right? That's in terms of suffering. That's helpful to know.

Justin:

For sure. Grief Share, I think does a brilliant job of walking through lesson by lesson. You just share this and then the group follows up. This would be more training those people that are going to walk alongside. So yeah, the videos here would be helping you establish the people that are going to come alongside and care.

Justin:

The actual Oasis groups that that we've been doing are a little bit more locally designed.

Mike:

Yeah. So More contextualized.

Justin:

For sure. Yeah. Don't know what the best phrase would be.

Mike:

Yeah. That's I think that's the hard part sometimes with some of these ministries where churches are trying to figure out and sort out, alright, I've got this care that I need to try to build. There's pulling from this, pulling from that to try to figure out how they can actually create something in their context. So that's so I appreciate you guys sharing that and just being bold enough to like, hey, we're figuring it out as we go. What we can say is that we're walking with people who are struggling and they need that comfort.

Mike:

So the fact that you guys are doing that, so I'll be sure to put some of that stuff in the show notes that material. I appreciate you guys for sharing. And hopefully in November, I can come back and we can see how this ministry is going. And maybe we've got we can have a follow-up episode on this and encourage those who, you know what, I think we're gonna give that a go, and I may even get some inquiries on it. And so who knows?

Mike:

You may get an email from me to see, hey, I got so and so from wherever who's needing some help. Awesome. Thank you, guys. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys, for listening.

Mike:

And, again, anything that you'd like us to talk about topic wise, you can email us at topics@speakthetruth.org. Thank you for listening. We'll see you all next time.