Wildwood 75th Anniversary Celebration

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Wildwood Lifestyle Center

Community Health Evangelism

Angeline D. Brauer

1. Jesus: The Original and Best

I am the new Health Ministry Director for the North America Division, and it's really a pleasure to be here with you.

I just started my role in April of this year, and prior to this I was working on the island of Guam as a dietician at our Adventist clinic there, and also I was directing our wellness center, wellness programs there.

So what I'm going to do this afternoon is share with you a mission story a mission report from the island of Guam The reason 1 reason why is because I just love mission stories and I think we need to hear more and more about the amazing things the Lord is doing throughout the world.

And so I want to share that with you but also because I want to share with you some of the dreams and visions the Lord has placed in my heart for health ministries for this current term, And much of that has been informed from my experience on Guam.

So I want to share that with you, hopefully so that we can learn how we can work together to accomplish God's mission.

Now this morning, what we want to do is, first of all, lay our foundation for health evangelism.

We want to learn the principles of how to do health evangelism.

And we know that Christ's method alone will give true success.

We know it's from Ministry of Healing, page 143, but have we spent the time to look at the details of that?

And so what I want to do this morning is actually look through the Word of God, through looking at Christ as an example, to glean the principles of healthy evangelism.

And then we're also going to spend some time just getting very practical.

Some practical things that will help us organize our evangelism efforts, our health evangelism efforts.

So thank you for being with us this morning.

And of course, let's start with a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, Lord, we are so grateful to be your children.

Lord, you have called each of us out of darkness into your marvelous light so that we may show forth your praises.

And as we Spend time today considering and contemplating your work.

Teach us how to be the missionary that you want us to be.

Give us wisdom, give us strength, give us clear insight, Lord, that we may learn more about you and how to share you more effectively with others.

I'm not sure if that is, there we go, Okay.

The principles of health reform are found where?

So it's very important that we are students of the Word of God primarily.

Of course, we want to learn true health principles, scientific methodologies, proven scientifically, spirit of prophecy, verified, certified.

We want to know science of health, but everything must be founded on the Word of God.

And so this is why we're starting today with a study of the Word of God.

This is in Councils to the church, page 308.

Health needs reform, but not the divine commission of God.

Christ's way of presenting truth cannot be improved on.

The Savior gave the disciples practical lessons, teaching them how to work in such a way as to make souls glad in the truth.

We want happy, glowing from the inside out.

We want to bring people to a fullness of health, and that includes being joyful in the truth.

He sympathized with the weary, the heavy laden, the oppressed.

By the good he accomplished, by his loving words and kindly deeds, he interpreted the gospel to men.

What people, what we all need, what the world is dying for more than anything else is a lack of knowledge.

And our actions, our health ministry, our health evangelism is a way to help interpret the gospel to them.

Christ's work in behalf of man is not finished.

Certainly we know this from our sanctuary, understanding of the heavenly sanctuary, but going on, in like manner, his ambassadors are to preach the gospel and to reveal his pitying love for lost and perishing souls.

By unselfish interest in those who need help, they are to give a practical demonstration of the truth of the gospel.

We need to help our communities understand what the gospel of Christ truly is.

And it's done by giving a practical demonstration.

And this is where health evangelism comes in.

I like here, towards the end of this paragraph, do medical missionary work.

Thus, you will gain access to the hearts of people and the way will be prepared for a more decided proclamation of the truth.

And That's what we all want to do, right?

White says, the time has come for every member of the church to be a medical missionary.

So Christ is the originator and the best.

In Manuscript 22 of 1898, It reads, Christ was the most successful physician the world has ever known.

And so We want to learn from the best, don't we?

Going on, Jesus Christ is the originator of all the missionary work done in our world.

He worked miracles to heal the sick, but he never worked a miracle in his own behalf.

His first noted miracle was performed at a marriage feast in Cana when he turned water into wine.

So what we're gonna do now, we are going to look at the story of Cana itself to see how we can learn to be a medical missionary the way that Christ did.

So these are the verses we're going to look through.

John chapter 2, chapter 4, and chapter 21.

And we are actually going to read large portions of these.

So if you have your Bible, please pull them out.

I would like for you to be able to read these as well.

And we're going to go step by step through these stories to glean the principles of how Christ did his missionary work.

Now Cana was a city in Galilee and it was blessed to be where Christ performed his first miracle, but also his second miracle.

It tells me that we probably should learn what happened here, so that we can learn what we are to do today.

And can I have somebody read that out for us?

On the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.

And both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage.

Okay, so we're familiar with the story, I think.

2. One Event at A Time

Our last presentation was certainly much more heavy on Bible study, which is honestly where I'm happiest.

But what we want to do for this presentation is just talk a little bit about organization.

I see a, at least 1 person doesn't sound very happy about that.

Or it just might be, You know, when we talk about organizing, not everybody is born with the skill of organization.

Some of us just kind of like to dream big and just run and do whatever meets us.

We need those who can just take an idea and go with it and they're done with it before you can even, you know, say thank you.

Now this is another area that I'm particularly fond of because I tend to be a lot more organized.

I function better when things are in order.

When there's disorder, I'm very frustrated and I feel almost immobilized.

And there's good reason for why we should do things decently and in order.

Father in heaven, Lord, we desire the order of heaven.

So we ask for your wisdom and your guidance in this talk today, amen.

All right, now, so what I wanna do with this presentation, This is not the most exciting or thrilling presentation, I'll be honest, because it's very just kind of lists of things to think about.

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost Whether he has enough to complete it we Yeah, it's it's the font is very light, but I think it'll get better later on.

We have a presentation going on simultaneously about, I think it's, 10 ways to make sure your ministry doesn't fail at the beginning.

You know, many times, well let's say, let's put it this way.

We are living in the toenails of Daniel 2, right?

We are living at the very cusp of eternity.

And not only that, but unto us has been given only 3 score and 10 to complete much work.

And we have a burden for the work, don't we?

We really want things to be done and done fast, quickly, because we want to see Jesus.

This situation brings up a bit of a normal tension when it comes to talking about programs, about ministry, about events, about how we do things in the church even.

Because we know that we're supposed to finish the work right away, get it done, hasten the Lord's coming.

And yet at the same time, why do we see ministries fail after a short period of time?

Why is it that every few years we're reinventing?

We're Starting all over again where someone else had already built a foundation.

Finding that balance between making sure we are doing things for the long term, but for the short term?

I'll be honest, I don't have the answers for that.

But what I can say is that Christ has told us, sit down, count the cost before you even start and see if you can actually accomplish what you set out to do.

Very important that before we begin our projects, and even in the middle of our projects, our ministries, we need to assess how are we doing.

And so today we're going to spend a little bit of time going through some of those things.

We're going to go fairly quickly, but we'll try to get as much information out here.

This is Patriarchs and Prophets, page 376.

Everything connected with heaven is in perfect order.

Subjection and thorough discipline mark the movements of the angelic host.

Success can only attend order and harmonious action.

God requires order and system in his work, now no less than in the days of Israel.

All who are working for him are to labor intelligently, not in a careless, haphazard manner.

He would have his work done with faith and exactness, that he may place the seal of his approval on it.

Makes it sound a little bit more important now, doesn't it?

That we have order in what we do and how we do it.

It is essential to labor with order, following an organized plan and a definite object.

No 1 can properly instruct another unless he sees to it that the work to be done shall be taken hold of systematically and in order so that it may be done at the proper time.

I highlighted 3 components, an organized plan, a definite object, and proper time.

Important that we consider all 3 of those aspects as we are planning and implementing.

So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about how to assess needs and opportunities for our work that we want to do.

We're going to talk about having goals and objectives.

Some of us may, We may think of this as mission statements.

Planning and implementation, how to actually do those in an orderly way.

Oftentimes, evaluation is an aspect of our ministries that we neglect to do, maybe because we're too busy, maybe because we didn't plan for it in the beginning, but it's an important piece because how do we know that we're achieving what we want to achieve?

So we're going to go through each of these.

If we are talking to individuals about something that is completely unrelated to what their life is dealing with, then it's not going to affect them.

1 example, when I first arrived in Guam, some of our education classes, and this is, I'm just sharing what happened, not to, you know, criticize at all, but what was happening is that in our lifestyle class, we were teaching specifics about diabetes, but not everybody attending the class had diabetes.

So for those portions of the program, they wouldn't show up.

And we lost half of the class halfway through the program.

So we need to make sure that we're speaking to their needs.

You know, if they're living in the mountains and they don't have cars, you know, to get to your program, where are you going to have the program?

What are you going to, what kind of lifestyle does that, does that mean that they have?

What is the primary gender that we want to target?

Oftentimes it's the woman who cooks at home or prepares the meals.

So if we're talking about healthy cooking, who do we target?

The ethnicity is very important as well because there are certain cultures also that come along with our different ethnic groups.

You know, if we're teaching them how to make wonderful vegan food, but they have to spend $50 on buying these very expensive ingredients, or they have to buy a $400 equipment, they're going to say, thanks, but that's not really helpful, if they don't have the resources.

But then if you're working in a very wealthy community, they may be ready to put that money out if it's going to make life easy for them.

You know, for some individuals, we can tell them all the details about chemistry and how all of these various interactions happen in our body, but for others we're going to lose them.

What is the history, the values, the traditions of the community?

History is very important because people want to know, when you can tell someone, oh, I've heard about that, can you tell me more about it?

You know, It's another way of associating with people, opening up to their history, knowing what has affected them.

3. Meeting Needs, Reflecting Christ

Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you again for giving us the opportunity to minister, to serve, to taste more of your glory.

And Father, as we continue our discussions, we just again plead for your presence.

We desire you in our hearts, and we desire you in our minds, directing our thoughts and inspiring us to the work you would have us do.

We thank you that you will fulfill your promise that where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.

Ultimately, what we want to do is give the world a revelation of Jesus Christ.

And as we meet their needs, this is 1 of the ways that we can really truly reveal Christ.

And as we saw in a quote earlier, that we actually interpret the gospel by meeting people's needs.

It's called the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

It was developed by Abraham Maslow, who's a psychologist in the 40s.

He developed it a little bit more following that time.

But he found that human beings have needs.

Well, that's not earth-shattering news, right, to anybody.

But not only that, but he was able to categorize them.

Now, When we put things in categories, it doesn't put things in boxes in reality.

This is just a framework for us to help us understand so that we can understand how people work And so then we can then understand how best to reach them.

1 of my favorite quotes from Ellen White is that she says, to deal with human minds is the nicest of work.

That's such a beautiful, beautiful phrase.

It means that we have to put a lot of effort and thought and heart and soul when we deal with human minds.

And part of that is understanding how we work.

So he determines the psychology in there as well.

So we need to understand, use these tools, and of course bring in our Christian, our Adventist understanding, so that we are truly getting heaven's message about how people work, so that we can best reach them.

So Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it describes, he began by using this to describe patterns of human motivation.

What drives them to do certain things, to achieve things, to have goals, to have desires?

And interestingly is Maslow, instead of studying those who were ill, mentally or emotionally had illnesses, he actually studied very successful people.

In 1 process of studies, he actually looked at the top 1% of college students.

So he was looking at high functioning individuals to determine what drives them, what causes them, leads them to do things.

So he came up with these 5 different categories of needs.

And it just so happens that at the bottom of the triangle, these are the most basic needs.

And in a way, individuals have to work up the ladder.

Unless their most basic needs are met at the bottom, they're not necessarily going to strive for the higher needs, those secondary needs.

So this helps us to understand why an individual who really needs something more meaningful in their life may not be seeking for it because they're just trying to survive.

They're trying to make their way in the world.

You know, a teenager, they're trying to gain acceptance.

They're not worried about, you know, my 10 years down the line, I'm going to have diabetes if I drink sodas.

You know, they're not thinking about those types of things.

There are other more immediate needs for them.

And so we need to understand that these are the processes going on in our own minds.

And if we even think of ourselves, maybe we would find that sometimes we're not driven for certain things to meet certain needs because we're overwhelmed with other more immediate needs too.

So let's take a look at each of these needs a little bit more in detail.

Basically These are what is needed for survival.

In order for our body to make it to the next day, the next week, we need these to survival.

So water, food, shelter, the basics of what you might learn in a survival course.

If you were out in the desert somewhere, you know, what do you need and how do you get it?

After a while, if you don't have water, if you don't have air, if you don't have food, your body will cease to function, right?

So it makes sense that this would be a primary need.

Now, Because we are talking in a context of missionary work, medical missionary work, something that we also want to consider is how do we not only help people meet these needs, if this is their primary concern, for example the homeless, children who don't have secure food, elderly who have a difficult time eating, you know, all of these different things.

But not only do we want to help them reach those physical needs, but how can we also help them understand that these are actually tied to some spiritual needs as well.

And in fact, maybe we can help by helping them understand that the physical needs are a tool that Christ wants them to use to see that they need him.

Nehemiah 9 verses 20 and 21, thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

And what is the context that Nehemiah is talking about right here?

Yea, 40 years Didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing?

In fact, even their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not." As we open up the Word of God to individuals and we show them the stories in the Bible, these are simple stories that many of us learned as children, but It's amazing how many people in the world have never heard these stories.

But as we share just the simple 2 verses with them, what does that make them think about in terms of their actual physical needs, their water.

Well, if God could do that in the wilderness for 40 years, can't he help me?

Now, As we have these kinds of conversations with them, we also want to be careful that we're not minimizing the actual physical need.

We don't want them to think that, well, I'm just going to leave here and God is going to give me the water and that's that.

You know, we need to help them be very understanding about this, that God is telling them that yes, He can supply all their needs.

I'll share a short personal story of mine.

When I was in graduate school, you know, As a student, you don't have a whole lot of money coming your way.

There are times where you actually do wonder, where is my next meal going to come from?

I actually have very supportive family, but I made it a point at a certain time that I was not going to ask them for help because I wanted to be independent.

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Series

Community Health Evangelism

3. Meeting Needs, Reflecting Christ

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

1. Jesus: The Original and Best

1h 12m

2. One Event at A Time

32m

3. Meeting Needs, Reflecting Christ

47m

Sound Doctrine