Editor’s note: This information was published in a previous issue of Heartfelt Magazine, CHM’s monthly magazine that provides CHM membership-related tips and tricks, medical advice from doctors, testimonies from CHM members and more. Please refer to the CHM Guidelines and applicable web pages for the most up-to-date information regarding CHM membership, sharing eligibility and ministry news.
When you speak to friends or family members about Christian Healthcare Ministries, they might ask you questions about the company that helps with your healthcare costs. They might want to know about this business that has been in operation since 1981 serving its members’ needs. If such questions are asked, you can explain that CHM is neither a company nor a business.
This is a ministry—from the basement to the ceiling, from the first to the last word of the Guidelines. It’s reflected in the information employees share each day with members and prospective members. It’s clearly shown—from the way our programs work to the way our employees pray with and for our members. It’s represented in the way our members pray for and encourage each other with cards, letters and messages of care and concern.
If CHM weren’t a ministry, it would be just another company or business and thus could no longer fulfill its purpose of sharing Christians’ medical bills. That’s not to disparage or criticize profit-making enterprises. But a free-enterprise business isn’t what we are at CHM.
CHM is a ministry.
The story of CHM members Cassie and John Millburn illustrates this point. The Milburns detailed their experience involving their daughter and a tumor that wouldn’t go away. “Members from all across the country began to pray for Mallory’s healing and sent her encouraging cards and letters. Someone even mailed her a handmade stuffed animal!”
“A few weeks after asking people to pray, we realized that Mallory’s tumor was smaller. We watched her tumor continue to shrink until one month later, it was entirely gone. I know with all of my heart that the tumor shrank and disappeared because of the power of prayer!” Editor’s note: read more of the Millburn’s story here.
That’s not a letter to a business. That’s a letter to a ministry. We receive many such letters expressing gratitude to our employees, other members and the ministry as a whole.
CHM’s distinction as a ministry is crucial for three reasons:
- If CHM were a business, our purpose would be more focused on making money than on serving fellow Christians.
- Our ministry’s purpose is to glorify God and serve His people.
- We’ll not be diverted from our purpose.
CHM isn’t a health insurance company. We don’t have the same incentives, procedures, processes and operations as an insurance company. This is a health cost sharing ministry, a nonprofit charitable organization that has earned the Better Business Bureau’s highest possible rating.
At CHM there are no contracts. There is no assignment of risk. There are no employees telling doctors and other healthcare providers what they can and can’t do in service to you.
CHM doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to you. We are here for you, because of you, and to serve you as we seek to glorify God. Because that’s what a ministry does.
