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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Mark Finley

Lela Lewis

Chris Lewis

Don Mackintosh

Ted N.C. Wilson

AMEN Luncheon Session- Part 1

How do you take a church of 18 million plus members with 25 to 27 million attending and how do you lead that church from where it is to what God wants it to be?

How do you lead a church of 18 million with its diversified cultures, its multiple institutions, it's more than 160, 000 plus churches, it's 530 some odd conferences and 120 unions.

How do you move an organization this large from where it is to where God wants it to be.

And I thank God for a consecrated, godly leader in Elder Wilson that knows Jesus, that is committed to uplifting the principles of the Bible and the spirit of prophecy.

I thank God for Nancy, who stands by his side and faithfully prays for her husband.

Let me share with you some things that we have initiated in the last 12 months at the General Conference that are beginning to make a major difference in the area of gospel medical missionary evangelism.

It was about 2 years ago that Elder Wilson came to me and he said, Mark, we need to be thinking about how we can make some dramatic changes in this church in the area of comprehensive health ministry.

We defined comprehensive health ministry as the selfless service of Christ ministering to the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional needs everywhere as Jesus would.

Why is the Seventh-day Adventist Church interested in health?

Before sin, human beings were in perfect health.

But after sin, in our degenerative broken condition, we've lost that abundance of health that comes from Eden.

Seventh-day Adventists believe that we've been called of God to restore health to its Edenic state the best we can in a broken world.

We believe that we've been called of God to restore health to its Edenic state the best we can in a broken world.

We believe that we've been called of God to restore the brokenness that has become because of sin.

First, because God did it right the first time.

He planted us in a garden and we live in a jungle and he calls us back to the benefits of fresh air and diet and the relationship with him and 1 another and exercise we find in creation.

But there's a second reason we're interested in health and that's because Jesus was.

We get our model for healing in the ministry of Christ.

And so Jesus was interested in the poor, the sick, the lame, the blind, the unfortunate.

And We are called to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

So we care about people that are suffering.

We can do no other if we follow in the footsteps of Christ.

But there's a third reason we are interested.

We're interested because of the ministry of Christ.

But Seventh-day Adventists believe that health is part of a message echoed by the 3 angels to prepare a people for the coming of Jesus.

We do not simply believe that health is separate from the entire message of the gospel.

We see human beings as integrated spiritual, physical, mental, whole.

So if you help a person to better health, they will think clearly so that their minds will be more receptive to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the last days of earth's history.

What are the Seventh-day Adventist Church doing in comprehensive health ministry?

We've established at the General Conference a committee on comprehensive health ministry.

We have been working with every division in the world to launch significant health outreaches.

We just have come from Geneva, Switzerland where we brought the top minds from around the world, top researchers, some Seventh-day Adventists, some not Seventh-day Adventists, to expose our division leadership to the latest research on health.

We had 42 members of the General Conference Executive Committee that spent 7 days studying the latest research on health.

We were getting research reports from the leading universities of the United States, of Europe, of Australia, cutting edge stuff on diabetes, heart disease, cancer.

We got the latest update from Gary Frazier on the Adventist health study.

Our top leadership of the church sat there listening to these reports, profoundly impressed with those reports on health.

In addition to that, we were looking at models of health that were taking place, new centers of influence that were starting in the Middle East where we can't preach the gospel, but we're starting vegetarian restaurants in the Middle East.

If this were an Adventist meeting, somebody would have said, amen.

We are recruiting physicians to leave their comfortable practices in America and go to the Middle East as medical missionary physicians.

We are starting vegetarian restaurants throughout South America.

Our vegetarian restaurant, vegan vegetarian restaurant in Argentina is serving 1, 400 people a day.

There is a resurgence of interest on the part of conferences and unions around the world that are actually financing and sponsoring vegetarian restaurants.

We are seeing some very incredible things that God is doing.

There are models of local churches that are becoming medical missionary comprehensive health evangelistic centers.

1 of the things that we are emphasizing and working on at the general conference level is churches, church-based evangelistic centers that are medical missionary centers.

1 of our roles at the GC as well as to produce resources.

We have we've just produced a new booklet called Health and Wellness Secrets That Will Change Your Life And this is what we did.

We said we want to find the best possible authors, bring their research together in 1 book in layperson's terms, that a layperson can understand, and then give every chapter a spiritual emphasis and put this in Seventh-day Adventist doctor's offices, give it to Seventh-day Adventist members to give out.

And so, for example, here are some of the authors in the book.

Al was voted the most popular top physician in medical practice in America for a number of years, I think the last 2 years.

He is currently the Dean of the School of Health Medicine at the University of Maryland, was the acting president.

He is a Seventh-Day Adventist, has Bible studies in his home, is a foremost researcher on diabetes.

Ben Carson has helped us with some material on neurofunction.

Cliff Goldstein starts out the book with a chapter on creation and the fact that we're created by God.

Dwayne McBride talks about, sociologist, talks about the family and health.

Gary Frazier gives us the latest on Adventist health studies.

Peter Landlis writes about alcoholism and Neil Nedley writes a chapter on depression.

The idea is that in every single chapter in the book.

We start with the physiological, then we blend the spiritual into that chapter so the spiritual comes in naturally and logically.

When you leave the meeting today, we're gonna put a copy of this book in your hands.

I just received an email from the president of the South American Division, Ertin Kohler.

And Ertin says to me, Ertin says, Mark, we are planning a major event in December.

A thousand government officials and top civic leaders will meet to and will introduce the book to them.

Can you come and lecture on health to these thousand leaders in South America?

Then he says, oh by the way, you know how many books we're printing for our division?

How many do you think they're gonna print?

They put an invitation in every single book.

They give out 21 million books in the South American division.

There's an invitation to come to the Adventist Church for a series of health lectures and we have prepared 7 fully illustrated top-quality graphics that go along with the book.

The leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is interested in promoting comprehensive health.

The next quinquennium, we will launch equipping programs in each of our world divisions.

We'll offer it to our world divisions where each world division will have an opportunity of inviting pastors, physicians, and some laypeople to come to those meetings.

And we will run training programs, equipping programs, motivational, share the resources that are available.

I thank God for amen and for each of our media ministries.

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AMEN Luncheon Session- Part 1

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