Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.

AMEN Australia 2018: Healing, Surviving, Thriving

<p>Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Paul Rankin

Practical Implementation of Local Church Health Programs

Okay, so the topic I've been given to address is the effect of local church health ministry.

And I want to look at it from a slightly different perspective.

I actually had a really interesting experience.

Okay, I won't tell you about the religious experience I had then.

If you have a look, when I was starting in church pastorate, the big thing was having a mission statement.

It's interesting, I tried to find a mission statement of Christ, and this is the closest I've been able to come to it.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release the oppressed, and to proclaim the new year of the Lord's favour.

But I found it really challenging because as a young minister, the conference president would come and visit me once or twice a year, and there were 3 questions he asked me.

The first question, what do you think the first question he asked me was?

The second 1 would be how much tithe is your church paying?

And the third 1 would be the Bible studies or worshiping congregation, depending upon what the very president.

And then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, sat down, and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.

He began by saying to him, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

And a couple of years ago, I read a book that had a profound influence on me.

It's a book by an Anglican scholar called Empty Right.

I actually read it because someone had told me that empty right takes the same position on the state of the dead that we do, and he does over a similar position.

But he actually says there, he said, why did Jesus live and die and then get raised from the dead again?

Jesus' resurrection or his life, as he right postulates, was about bringing the Kingdom of Heaven about right here and now.

And as urbanists, I had got up with the concept that the Kingdom of Heaven is something that happens after the Second Coming, after the perusal, the escapade, whatever term you like to put on it.

But he said, no, Jesus lived and died to bring the kingdom of heaven about life here and now and look at Matthew Go to the lost confused people in the neighborhood Tell them that the kingdom is here where not after the second coming to the kingdom is here Bring health to the sick raise the dead touch the untouchables kick out the demons.

You've been treated generously, so live generously.

Or Matthew 4, God's kingdom is his theme that beginning right now they are under God's government, a good government.

He also healed people of the diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives.

That's the theme verse for Chippin, Australasia.

But Jesus was out there being the Kingdom of Heaven and it challenged me to think about what's the Kingdom of Heaven?

What's the Kingdom of Heaven look like when My wife and I are driving somewhere and I get lost and she tries to tell me where to go.

What's the Kingdom of Heaven look like when I'm on the freeway?

And some idiot pulls across in front of me and almost wipes me out.

What's the Kingdom of Heaven look like when my youngest daughter runs up and says, Dad, Dad, don't get angry.

And you know, what's the kingdom of heaven look like?

And then, Dad, I was actually backing out of the car park on Thursday, and this is Tuesday, and someone had shown up with a bill for repairs of the car, you know.

Dad, what's the kingdom of heaven look like right there and then?

And I believe that our role as a church is to be the kingdom of heaven right here and right now.

Unfortunately, the Adventist church looks more like this, as I showed you yesterday.

But the purpose of the Adventist church is to be the kingdom of heaven right here and right now.

So an effective ministry of the local church is to be the kingdom of heaven right here and right now.

I would like to suggest to you that Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people.

The Saviour mingled with men as 1 who desired their good.

He showed his sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, won their confidence, standing at bathe and following me." Once again, it's not about getting baptisms.

The ultimate we can offer someone is eternal life.

But that's not what—we don't get notches on our belts.

It's about making a difference in people's lives.

And there's another quote here that says, what I think we need to be looking at when we look at an effective local church ministry, is looking at a systemic approach to that, or a systematic approach to that.

We've got to identify what our community is.

Okay, what's the community of your church?

No, okay, first of all, it means 1 people.

I suggest the communities of people outside the church.

Now look, 1 of the churches I passed was 50 metres, well probably 100 metres from the University of Christchurch.

So we define our community as university students in part.

Your community may be old people, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Your community may be putting a pin in the map and drawing a circle 2 kilometres around your church.

Your community may be the Portuguese people speaking in Sydney.

But before you can do anything, you need to say, this is our community.

Okay, fundamental stuff like, but what is your community?

And then, once you've identified that community, you need to identify the needs in that community.

How do you think you can identify the needs in the community?

Actively getting involved in what you can in the community.

But there's also some really easy things you can do.

We did a church planting protest in Belfast.

We looked at the census data for Belfast.

And we found out that 45% of the families in Belfast were single-parent families.

Practical Implementation of Local Church Health Programs

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