AMEN 2009 Student Conference: The Ministry of Healing

Chester Clark

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Dr. Clark Personal Testimony

Well, it's a real pleasure to be here with you today.

It always brings back memories when I come back to this campus and think about the actual 5 years I spent in Loma Linda.

I wasn't in dental school quite that long, but back then dental school was a 3 year course.

It'd be nice to get it over with in 3 years, wouldn't it?

Actually, I think about 80% of our class needed 42 months and a few needed 48 months or longer.

But I was 1 that took 42 months to finish.

So it was December of 1976 that I finished dental school.

1 of the memories as we sang here tonight I was thinking of was 1 of the ways our class devised to relieve stress.

So anyone here experience stress in mock boards or lab projects where you have a given amount of time to do something.

Well, when the stress level seemed to be just about the highest, someone in our class would break out in singing a hymn.

Before long, everyone in the whole class, it seemed like, was singing that hymn.

And it just, you know, it just added an air about the atmosphere that relaxed everybody and we became, came known as the singing class, I guess.

Robert James was 1 of our favorite instructors.

And we had a song we would sing whenever he came into the room.

And I won't try to sing it for you, but Anyway, we had a lot of fun.

I think some of the instructors were kind of glad when we graduated.

We also had a men's chorus out of our class.

I remember we sang at the University Church a time or 2.

This evening, I want to go to, take you to 1 Corinthians, the third chapter.

And as I read this chapter recently, I happened to think how many applications it has to me and my life.

And so I'm going to kind of weave my personal experience into some of the things that I see in this chapter of 1 Corinthians 3, beginning with verse 3.

Apparently, there were some problems in Corinth.

We know there were some problems in Corinth, and Paul is describing some of them here.

He says, For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men?

So here we find the Corinthians, he's describing them as experiencing envying and strife, divisions, reminding them that they are carnal and they are walking as men.

That's kind of, to me it means walking the way sin has left us, walking in our carnal minds.

But you know, if we remember what Jesus said in John, the first chapter, verse 12, He said, and as many as received him, to them gave him, gave them power to what?

So if we have received Jesus, we have power to become actually a child of God.

And if we are a child of God, we're not walking as men, are we?

And so this was, I think, 1 of the solutions to the problem of the Corinthians as well, if they had been surrendered.

Then he goes on in verse 4, for while 1 saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?

But ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.

I have planted, " Paul speaking about himself, I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

You know, there's different personalities, and sometimes we in the church may think that 1 pastor is effective and another one's not effective because they may have a different approach, or they may have different skill sets, or they may approach things in different ways.

And Paul is trying to point out that even though he played 1 role in planting, and apparently Paul, obviously Paul was a church planter, wasn't he?

Wherever he traveled in the world, he left a Christian church behind.

And Apollos was also no doubt an effective worker, and he described him as someone who watered.

But apparently, some of the church believers felt that Paul was better or Apollos was better and so it was dividing the church.

And then Paul says in verse 6, but God gave the increase.

So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God gave the increase.

And as I've thought about this, I guess there's similar differences in personalities and professional people as well.

When I left dental school, the church leaders in the poor conference that I went to, small conference, and there was, I think, maybe 1 other Adventist dentist in the conference at that time, and just a few physicians, they wanted me to go to a church that was established, that was maybe struggling.

Actually, they wanted me to go to 1 of the big cities where I could make more money.

But I felt called to go to a dark county where there had not been an Adventist witness before.

They tried to persuade me to go to a small church that was struggling when they found I wasn't going to go to a bigger city.

I said, no, I want to go to an area where there's nothing been done before.

And you know, just the fact that I was willing, my wife and I were willing to strike out into the unknown like this doesn't make me any better than those who don't.

And I think it's similar to what Paul was dealing with here.

Whatever God calls us to, that's what we should be doing.

And I've often wondered if there's not a genetic component to planters.

As I look at my background, I have a great uncle, had a great uncle who pioneered Adventist work down in South America.

Perhaps some of you when you were children read the book, These Fords Still Run.

Lillian Orly Ford was a great uncle of mine.

And I had another uncle who started churches.

He started 1 of the main churches in Lincoln, Nebraska, Piedmont Park Church.

And he actually started the church down in Escalito, California.

Some of your parents will probably remember Perry Green, Pastor Perry Green.

My brother has started several churches and schools as well.

Maybe there's a genetic component to it, I don't know.

But nevertheless, let me just give you a brief background of myself.

I was actually born the third of 5 children, and it was before we knew about the middle child syndrome so I didn't have any excuses.

But my father disappeared from the family when I was 4 years old and youngest in our family was I think 6 months.

So we grew up basically without a father.

Thankfully my mother was able to keep us in church school, and I'm a product of the Adventist school system through Loma Linda University.

But by the age of 10, we were living in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I was developing quite a criminal record and getting in trouble with the police and a number of things we don't need to go into.

But my mother wisely moved to Arkansas, rural Arkansas.

And so I finished elementary school and academy there at Ozark Academy.

But at the age of 12, I surrendered my life to Jesus, and that has made all the difference in the world since then.

Although I would not say I'm a perfect example, but I can look back and see how the Lord has blessed and led in my life since that time.

And I also, thinking about career choices, when I was young, I read a lot of books about missionary doctors, and I really wanted to be a missionary doctor.

However, when I was in academy, I was somewhat of a model child, and everyone said, oh, you need to be a preacher.

So I just didn't think too much about it and decided I would go on to college and be a preacher.

Until after 3 years of college and I was looking at a commitment to go to Andrews University and become a preacher that I thought, whatever happened to my interest in being a missionary doctor?

And so the summer after my third year of college, I decided I wanted to go into medicine.

And so I changed my direction completely and began taking more science classes than I had.

My wife, we were married after our third year of college, and she finished a year ahead of me.

And then we moved from Southwestern Adventist College to Union College, where she was accepted into a master's degree program and dietetic internship at the University of Nebraska.

And so I finished my college degree there at Union College.

And then we moved to Loma Linda, where she was hired actually before she graduated and worked in the medical center as an administrative dietitian here.

But the year I applied to medical school, there were 1, 500 applications.

But about this time, we ran into some friends.

He was teaching in the dental school and he encouraged me to study dentistry instead.

And during the time I was taking some classes here, our first year here, starting a degree in public health, I was also working in the medical center as a nursing assistant and got a little clearer picture of the lives of residents and physicians and decided that I wanted to be home when my kids were growing up.

And so I changed career plans and the Lord opened the door for me to start dentistry.

So then, interestingly enough, when we finished, was finishing dentistry, we wanted to go into mission service.

My wife had dreamed of going to the Far East, and I, for some reason, wanted to go to the Middle East.

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