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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Brian Schwartz

Why I Need AMEN and so do You

Amen. Begin with actually a group of physicians meeting right here at ASI back in 2004. That means just about 15 years ago they met at asi. The following spring there was a meeting at Kata Springs and then a, the first conference was in 2004, I believe, in San Diego. How many of you were at that very first conference? So quite a few. So very good. And I see Naron here. He was one of the ones in influential in getting this started with, with a meeting that began right here at asi. Then a bigger group got together at Kata Springs. Pastor Finley was involved with encouraging us right from the start and he met with that small little group. And so we've been having a annual conference now for 15 years. Right from the very beginning. I was in a point in my medical practice where I was feeling just a bit burned out with the day-to-day activities of practice. I would go off on medical missionary trips, I'd been to to Nigeria, to Rwanda, to Zambia. That was just really rewarding and I thought of myself as doing medical ministry when I did those things. I would occasionally do a five day cessation plan, help out with Chip and do things like that at my church. But my practice was my practice and my ministry was my ministry and the two were completely separate and that wasn't very satisfying. Leaves to burnout, if you're just chasing that day after day after day, it's not very fulfilling. And so this came right at the right time when I was asking the Lord, Lord, there has to be something else. What is it that you wanna show me? Right at that same instant, you know, I went to Loma Linda, but unfortunately I did not learn how to pray with patients at Loma Linda. I did do a rotation at Wildwood with Dr. Dave Durose for one month. And I had the opportunity to pray with one patient, which was the most awkward thing that I ever did. I decided I was never gonna try to do that again. The gentleman was very deaf. I was yelling at the top of my lungs and by the time I got there, I couldn't remember his name and all that, just so I could sew up a laceration on his ear just wasn't mentored. It didn't go well. I thought there might be a role for praying with patients, but I did not know how to do it. And so it was kind of a discouragement. And then I worked in a cath lab with a bunch of millennials, a lot of just hip young people that just knew it would be embarrassing to try to pray in front of patients in front of them. And so right at the same time that Amen was starting, I had a case of a patient who had a very critical left main coronary artery disease. We engaged it with a catheter and immediately the blood pressure just plummeted. And so we had to put in a balloon pump and support her with a bunch of pressors and quickly try to get her over to the or. One of our anesthesiologists came in, there's 20, 30 people now in the room trying to get this lady ready to just crash over to the or as fast as possible. And he just stopped and said, everybody, can I have a moment of silence? I'm gonna say a prayer. And to my amazement, these young millennial hip people that work in the cath lab with me all stop. And afterwards they're like, wow, did you see that? That was he, he prayed with her. That was amazing. And I just felt this dagger in my heart thinking I should have done that. And I didn't know how to do it. So I was challenged by Pastor Finley at that very first Kata Springs, the pre pre Amen as an organization, but where it was getting going to actually go back and pray with patients. And that has radically changed my practice. I'm not gonna talk about that today. At the Amen Conference side, actually partner usually with Pastor Finley on a seminar just devoted to praying with patients. I believe that it is the door to open or it's the, it's the process that opens the door to a spiritual conversation and it just had so many incredible stories. But we don't have time to do that. For a while, I began thinking that God needs amen and God needs me as a medical missionary. There's a small sense in which he wants us. But I've come to realize over the last couple of years that that's absolutely backwards. And so what I just want to leave you with, the point is you can join. Amen. It's not gonna be for all the free stuff. It's not gonna be because we send you all kinds of things. You're not gonna get that big of a discount to our conference. But the reality is, is that I that that amen needs God and I need amen. Why? Cuz I'm naturally self-focused. I'm naturally bent toward worrying about myself. And the last thing that comes into my mind is serving other people. And if you guys all want a admit it, deep down inside of your heart, each of us has self and a self-interest. We need to serve other people because that's the experience of the cross. It's the gospel. It's what we're being taught. Jesus said that if I be lifted up, I will draw all to me. He's gotta be lifted up first and foremost in my own heart so that then he can be reflected to those around me. And over and over and John and in Luke, Jesus says He that takes up his cross and follow me. We are called to take up a cross because it's the cross of self denial and it comes in the form of serving those who are not always very desirable. The people, people that would otherwise burn me out if I did it day after day. But it's been radically transformative to see myself as now participating with God and reaching each of these, these people. And it's been a radical transformation in my thinking and radical transformation in my ministry. And I believe that's at the very core, the gospel and the health message coming together is critical. And the gospel is the story of Jesus, his life, his death is resurrection. The gospel united with this is for our salvation and the salvation of the world. I need amen. Because otherwise I am self-absorbed, self-focused, be worried about all my things, worried about my vacations, not getting disrupted by going to little churches that are so dirty you don't wanna sit down in them. I would be skipping all that stuff if it wasn't for the call of the gospel. And amen has given me some practical ways to to push that forward. I just wanted to read one or two quotes that I thought were interesting when I think about Amen. So this was a manuscript release volume four, page 4 27. The Lord has signified that the missionary health restorative gospel shall never be separated from the ministry of the word. The Lord Jesus has in his own example, showing us the way in which his work is to be done in the restoration of suffering humanity. And as Pastor Wilson already mentioned, Jesus spent more time in teaching and healing than he did in public speaking. There is a work to be done. So a few years down the road, as we started having conferences and we began encouraging people to begin engaging their medical practices, their dental practices, and turning it into a, a medical missionary field, a an evangelistic effort, we, I don't remember what year it was, but we got the call from the general conference right after the Haiti earthquake that there was a great need for immediately to have physicians and dentists to go to Haiti. And they called Amen. I think because of Pastor Mark's connection with Rebecca, who was the administrative director at that time. And within just I think 24 to 48 hours, there were a team of members of Amen that went to Haiti. Some of them were there as long as 10 days. It had a transformative effect on them in a transformative effect on our thinking that we needed to engage in this sort of practical outreach. And so a man began sponsoring once a year, an international mission trip, and just a couple years farther down the road, right around 2012, they started having the experience of thinking, what if we started doing free clinics? And the idea of Amen free clinics came up right around 2012 Little bit. Initially we were kind of a little bit scattered. We'd hold them in convention centers, we'd hold them in different places. But over the last couple of years, sometimes through difficult circumstances like running out of funds, we realize that the Lord has called Amen to try to fulfill the niche of providing free clinics in local churches. And we absolutely believe that there needs to be a connection between the local church as a medical outpost center. Every church should be an evangelistic center, but it should also be a medical missionary center. And so Amen now is working and partnering with churches as many as 30 per year with our small team to come in and provide free dental care, free vision care and free healthcare. And that just has had a revolutionary impact in a couple of ways. It inspires physicians and dentists. I heard the testimony of one dentist who hadn't been the church in five years, but he came to an Amen Clinic. He got engaged in the Amen Clinic and it restored his confidence in getting engaged with Adventism again. So it renews our commitment to being involved in the work of the church. We need to be engaged in ministry. It's for us primarily the world, secondarily that they need to see that. The other thing that this does is, as Elder Wilson shared, the quote, this opens the door medical missionary work is the opening wedge that opens the door to spiritual conversation. But through a few brief experiences, I think it does even more than that. Lindy had the, had the opportunity, Wendy and I both were actually this one was at Pathways, but we had the opportunity to help out with Pathways, which is a big free clinic. And she was taking care of a lady. They were so tired at the end of the day, she just barely cared what the lady said. But the lady said, wow, this is a pretty nice program that the government's providing. Wendy was tired and thinking, hell, I don't even know what to say about that. But her nurse said, what? What'd you say? This isn't the government. And at that point, they both explained to her that this was the Seventh Adventist church members doing this voluntarily. And she just broke down sobbing. Could not imagine that somebody would do that. It has in the immediate effect to reach the heart. I had a gentleman come into the clinic, come after providing for his needs. He just said, why do you guys do this? And I says, well, we're Seventh Adventist. And Jesus came to, to minister to us. We wanted minister to those in need. And he just started crying. He said, I don't know what seventh Adventists are. I've never heard them, but I want to be a member of your church. So yes, there's some things he needs to learn, but the reality is he's seeing the gospel in action and it is appealing directly to his heart. And he wanted to respond right then and there on the spot. That is the power of medical missionary work that I believe that God wants to use in these very last days. Let me read one more quote, testimonies for the church. Volume six, page 2 89. The medical missionary work should be a part of the work of every church in our land. Disconnected from the church. It would soon become a strange medley of disorganized atoms. Have we seen healthcare work in the Adventist church? Disorganized dis from the church? Sadly, that's been the case for nearly a hundred years, but God's plan is to restore that in these very last days. She says it would consume but not produce. Instead of acting as God's helping hand to forward his truth, it would sap the life and force from the church and weaken the message conducted independently. It would not only consume talent, it means needed in other lines, but in the very work of helping the helpless, apart from the ministry of the world word, it would place men where they would scoff at Bible truth. If we are not connecting with our patients spiritually, I believe that we are committing medical malpractice, become more and more convicted of that as we've been studying this together now this past 15 years. And so I'd like to close with Romans chapter six, verses 17 and 18. But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. As physicians and dentists and healthcare workers, all of us are at a higher risk of the successes that come with our field. Pride, selfishness. Getting caught up in materialism is a particular thing that we have to fight for. Your own salvation, the salvation of your families, and for the witness to the world. I would encourage each of you to become a member of Amen, or in some capacity, engage in medical missionary work. We as physicians and dentists aren't supposed to be doing this work alone. We should be leading the work, educating our churches, training every layperson. And imagine what that would be at the very end of time. Every church, a health, a place of healing, a health ministry center, every home, a lifestyle center, every seventh, advent, advent system, medical missionary. That's what God has envisioned for these very last days. And I believe that he raised up Amen. 15 years ago for that purpose. This media was brought to you by Audio verse, a website dedicated to spreading God's word through free sermon, audio, and much more. 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