SWYC 2013: ONE

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GYC Southwest

Don Mackintosh

Religion and Brain Health

Some of the people are still coming back in.

Weimar Institute has been around for about 40, 35, 40 years.

And actually started in 1978 or thereabouts.

And how many of you have ever heard of the New Start Program?

Probably 1 of the longest standing programs.

And there was a patient who went through there who was so blessed they came up with the acronym, New Start.

And the problem with the program is that it's had a world impact, but more people need to be involved in helping get that out.

And that's why we started a little health evangelism school that helps people rapidly get out.

And some of them are, I've graduated now, one's starting a lifestyle center in Australia, some are doing other exciting things.

Another program they have, and I'll tell you why I'm passionate about it, is there are plans to have a bivocational theology nursing track.

I was a nurse before I was a pastor, and you join nursing and pastoral, you got a purse, you know, pee and nurse.

So you have the ability to pay for what you're doing while you're doing ministry.

And I happen to think that we're going to come to a time where we don't have as much resources available to support the ministry.

And also there are many places that have no churches and no support now, so we're trying to have a bivocational theology nursing track.

And how many of you want to pray for that?

And we also… So we have a window of opportunity.

The state of California has granted us the opportunity to start a nursing program.

Loma Linda is working with us as well with some of the clinical sites.

It'll be the first, I guess you would call it, New Start type nursing program that blends gospel medical missionary work with the nursing curriculum.

And for those that are in theology, the curriculum of both of those into a blending of gospel medical missionary work.

By the way, that's a wind of change that's happening not just at Weimar, but also out in the Northeast.

I know that Toccoa Ministry is here from the Northeast, but there's another sister school of theirs called NETS.

It's Northeast Training School, Northeast Evangelism Training School, NETS.

And they also just got word that their nursing and theology programs are going to start up again, and we've actually been talking with them about doing a similar thing.

We want to kick out as many passionate gospel medical missionary workers as we can.

Also, we're looking to have short-term programs for professionals as well, where they can come to a two- to four-week training where they get at least some didactic elements.

Really the best thing though is to come to an immersive program if you want to learn gospel medical missionary work, because it's not so much taught as it is caught.

Jesus, if He could have done an online school, would have done 1.

He could have had a nice media ministry from heaven and not had to come down.

You know, here I am from the throne room, I'm jogging by the sea of glass, this is what you're in for if you graduate from my program.

He didn't send donor letters, he actually came and made a donation of himself.

And when he came down and did that for 3 and a half years he only took 12 people, and by the way, the people he chose, the only person that chose to go to his school was Judas, and it didn't work out so well.

But the people he chose were the ones that nobody else had chosen.

You gotta understand that when he called people to follow him, that was a high honor.

Rabbis would call people in those days to call them and come to their school.

And he didn't choose the people that necessarily you and I might choose, but he chose people to make a representation that The power of the gospel can work with all types of people.

Put a tax collector with a zealot, with all of these different personalities, and you know, you think about the worst nightmare of a group of people you've ever worked with, that was what Jesus did, But the power of the gospel completely and utterly changed all of them.

I want to talk about, well, brain health, but I want to talk about it in the context of health of the body and evangelism.

And I don't know exactly how it's going to go here because I just don't, so let's pray together and ask the Lord to help us.

Father in heaven, we stand between the quick, that is the living, and the dead.

We need to be dead to ourselves and alive to what you want.

But no matter how effective our programs are in lengthening life, what's really needed is eternal life.

No matter how effective our programs are in putting off death, we need victory over the second death.

And we ask that You would send it again in our time together now, and that You would empower us to continue to follow what You're leading us to do.

The Taj Mahal was built by a king for his queen or a prince for his princess.

Beautiful building, symmetrical, 1 of the wonders of the world.

We have some architects here that could tell you more about it than I can, but even I appreciate it.

Interesting thing was, he built it for his beloved after she died.

This particular architectural wonder was to memorialize the supreme object of this king's desire, that being his queen.

But the supreme object of God's desire is the church.

And what I want to talk about now is the connection between gospel medical missionary work and the church.

You see, for the last about 7 years, For 5 and a half years, I worked with an evangelistic ministry, and I traveled all over the place, and I would spend moments of time in various places.

But what I've recognized for all that fleeing from here to there is that it profits very little.

What really profits the most in terms of evangelism and in terms of life change is the local church, the local body of Christ.

Now I come at this from a pastoral perspective.

I was a pastor for 13 and a half years in the same church before I went to my position as the director of an evangelism school, and now I'm at this school, and I've recognized that what really changes lives is the organic connectedness and concert harmonious action of a body of believers under the direction of the head, that being Christ.

I recognized that if I could just get my friends, those that I wanted to be in the kingdom, if I could just get them to the church with all these other people, they had so many gifts and talents I didn't have, that they would work together to bring them in to the church.

And so I want to work into this by looking more closely.

To him, the dearest object on earth is his church.

And from age to age, the pure doctrines of heaven have been unfolding within the church's borders.

The house of God, which is the church of the living God, is the pillar and ground of truth.

I don't know about you, but I want to be in a place like that.

Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the 1 object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme regard, it is the theater of His grace.

You want to go to the theater and watch a real good thing happen?

It's the theater of His grace, pardoning grace, empowering grace, in which He delights to reveal His power to transform hearts.

I loved my church for 13 and a half years.

And they loved telling me what was wrong with me.

And I loved telling them what was wrong with them.

And they loved telling me how I annoyed them, and I loved hearing it because I wanted to grow.

I want a church that praises together, that rejoices together, that grows together like a family.

This is what God loves, and this is how He demonstrates His love.

You don't even know what you're talking about if you're not in a family, you don't have a family, you don't know what life is if you haven't been in a church that loves like Jesus.

So I hope you get a sense of my love for the church, and I hope you begin to love your church more and see it as a powerful extender, in fact, the only thing that can help you be successful in evangelism.

Why is it that I love the church ultimately?

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Religion and Brain Health

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