Facts & Faith Fridays bridges science and faith to host conversations about health

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: “A lawyer, a pastor and a doctor get an idea …” But that’s exactly what happened when three community leaders in Richmond, Virginia, decided to do something about the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, they co-founded Facts & Faith Fridays to bring together people from the medical and faith worlds to address the disparate impact of COVID-19 on the Black community. The program is a partnership between Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center and the African American faith community.

Each week on Friday afternoon, attorney Rudene Mercer Haynes, the Rev. F. Todd Gray, the pastor of Fifth Street Baptist Church, and Dr. Robert A. Winn, the director of VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, would listen to concerns from leaders and share information about COVID-19. The project began as phone conference calls and later moved to Zoom.

The weekly calls provided health updates to disseminate information about the pandemic, made connections between churches and local health departments about vaccinations, and helped dispel medical myths and misinformation.

Since 2020, we’ve hosted speakers and leaders from the local, state and national levels, including former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, former first lady Jill Biden, Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Almost five years later, we are still hosting conversations, still building relationships with faith leaders and still curating conversations on current public health topics. Our conversations revolve around cancer risks and prevention; medical myths and mistrust; systemic racism and health inequities; and health resources in and for urban and rural communities. The recordings are available online.

Why is this important for the church? As people of faith, we often focus on the spiritual well-being of those we lead. At the same time, we know that the mind, body and spirit all matter. When we are well and whole and work intentionally to bring access and justice for all, we see glimpses of heaven on earth. We also recognize that faith leaders are trusted sources of accurate information and ambassadors for their communities.

The Rev. Herbert L. Ponder, the pastor of Mount Tabor Baptist Church, serves as our clergy coordinator and a community leader. He said of the program: “Facts & Faith Fridays has exposed us to credible voices that we get to question in order to understand the information in terms we can share with our congregations and communities.”

The forum meets virtually twice a month. The first Fridays are for clergy, and the third Fridays are for clergy and the community. We curate conversations with faith, community and health care leaders that are informative and engaging, with a goal of inspiring positive change. Topics range from human metapneumovirus to school safety to the impact of race-related stress on African Americans’ well-being.

Our hope is that by encouraging and equipping congregations to engage in dialogue and learning, we will develop relationships that spur us to partner for care and research and give churches and communities the opportunity to host and participate in screenings and clinical trials.

As faith liaison and engagement coordinator with the Office of Community Outreach & Engagement at Massey, I get to curate these conversations with faith and community leaders in our catchment area, which includes 66 cities and counties in Virginia. We use this data, coupled with input and innovation from our clergy leadership team, to figure out how to best serve our communities together.

In a community with a high rate of prostate cancer, for example, we hosted a men’s prayer breakfast that brought education and information about screening. We encouraged those who attended to get screened or to share the information with the men in their lives.

In one congregation, we worked with the church’s health and wellness committee to create an inspiring and educational women’s event focused on breast cancer. We encouraged women to start with self-exams and be sure that they know when to schedule a mammogram. In some instances, we’ve been able to partner with mobile units to bring these screenings to the churches.

We work together to listen to the needs of the congregations that we are serving and to bring expertise from the medical teams to help educate the community on how they can take action to improve their health and the health of those they love.

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl Ivey Green, the executive minister at First Baptist Church of South Richmond, was part of the first screening event and said, “I am thankful to be a part of the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Facts & Faith Fridays as we partner to improve health outcomes, reduce health disparities and transform the lives of those in the community. I am so grateful for the hope that our partnership provides.”

Massey is a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, and so we are committed to understanding how cancer impacts the diverse communities we serve. Through our Facts & Faith Fridays conversations, we can encourage and educate folks about reducing their risk of cancer. Our programs put those ideas into action with resources for tobacco cessation, healthy eating and cancer prevention.

This year, we plan to take it even further when we partner with the clinical trials office at Massey to bring multi-cancer early detection (MCED) testing to churches in our catchment area.

And of course Facts & Faith Fridays continues online the third Friday of each month from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. (EST). Join us online for our next conversation!