During the early 1980s, as government health care reimbursement systems changed in the United States, an interest developed in strengthening healing alliances between health care facilities and faith communities. At the same time, Reverend Granger Westberg recognized the untapped resources of professional nurses that could be made available to parishioners. This recognition led to Westberg's pioneering of parish nursing as a way for faith communities to reclaim their healing mission. The value of reconnecting nurses to their traditional roots in faith communities spread quickly across the United States, and there are now over 3,000 registered nurses practising within American faith communities.