OBJECTIVE To explore ways to share Jesus in an optometric setting on a daily basis as God puts patients in our path where He can use us.

AMEN 2019: Christ in You

<p>OBJECTIVE To explore ways to share Jesus in an optometric setting on a daily basis as God puts patients in our path where He can use us.</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 (AMEN)

Breakout Session A

Erik Anderson

Professional longevity; Circumvent burnout

But it is my privilege, it is my honor to be here today.

With the content we've heard so far, it's inspiring.

You know, in the Bible, the tone of the Bible is what we fill our mind with, what we become.

And in so many ways, maybe in more subconscious ways, we walk away from a convention like this blessed, And you might not even realize all the blessings until you might have a fleeting thought 2 weeks later, or even words that come out of your mouth, and you thought, where did that come from?

And it came maybe from a quote, or a concept, or an idea shared at Amen.

And in fact, if this topic is really exciting to you, there's gonna be a double header, Neil Nedley, I think, at the next hour is presenting on burnout.

Now I do have to make a disclaimer and that is any post-lunch tiredness that I observe we're gonna have to stand up and maybe do 10-15 seconds of blood flow, okay?

You know, my favorite author says that perfect health depends upon perfect circulation.

So, this topic is so pertinent because we are in a field, the health field, that is like on a treadmill that is full speed.

Whether you've been in the career for a year, 20 years, 30 years, it's full speed.

And we all have glimpses of the exhaustion And we all have glimpses of the exhaustion that can occur with this.

And the good thing about burnout is it's 2 things.

With burnout, it's a warning and an opportunity.

So before we go any further, let me just offer a prayer and pray that God lead us in this discussion, that we could be touched and hopefully we can glean a pearl of truth from the Bible or from the pen of inspiration that can really have an application in our life.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the great book.

Thank you that we can be here at Amen and fellowship and collaborate and compare what's working and what's not.

And Lord, the here and now is only a brief, fleeting moment, but eternity is forever.

So with burnout, my question is, are you taking care of your health?

You know, dentistry is amazing, but like I said, it's like being on a treadmill full speed and I've had multiple conversations already with dentists who are still early in their career and they experience this exhaustion that can occur and so we're going to talk a lot about that today And you know what's amazing about this topic and what I'm gonna talk about today is there's just a high relationship between the phone that you have and maybe the burnout you experience.

There's things that we need to find as far as plugging in and charging up.

So we're gonna we're gonna deal with this.

So what if what if someone or myself could just hover around you for a day in your practice?

If I said you're going to be doing this for the next 80 years, would this put you in tears?

Or would you think, no problem, this is easy, this is sustainable, I could do this every day till the day I die.

Or are you experiencing symptoms of burnout?

And I'll tell you what, I've had those thoughts.

I'll share my story a little bit, but I have multiple practices and I have 4 young children, and so I've tasted this exhaustion that comes.

And what I'm going to be sharing with you today is kind of my testimony, my antidote or my secret sauce for circumventing burnout.

And I already know, I'm looking at the audience right now, I see a bunch of dynamic, charismatic, goal-oriented, determined, idealistic dentists.

And that very subcategory of people are high risk for burnout.

It's the ones that just don't care, that just, they show up 20 minutes late, and it hardly raises their heartbeat.

Those are the ones that are low risk for burnout.

So I know, I know, I'm just looking at the group, I know about half of you, and I know just beholding, looking at the faces, this is a high risk group.

So it's important that we talk about this, get out on the table, and hopefully make some observations and make some application.

And why are we right here in this burnout session right now?

You know, we're part of a movement, an Advent movement.

I'm so thankful for the camaraderie and the fellowship we have.

I'd say at least for a month following Amen.

I just kind of ride this Amen wave for at least a month.

But this next month, I'm just going to be riding the wave, and it's just absolutely amazing.

So here we are, the here and now versus eternity.

Let's get our mindset wrapped around we're in the here and now but we need to contemplate the eternity.

God has endowed us with a certain amount of vital force right here in the frontal lobe, the seat of spirituality, morality, and the will.

Ellen White says if we carefully preserve the life force and keep the delicate mechanism of the body in order, You know what the first law of heaven is?

It says the result is health, and heaven is all health.

But if the vital force is too rapidly exhausted, the nervous system goes into debt, and burnout ensues.

I want to talk a little bit about my story.

I want to talk about what burnout is, why it matters, a quick self-assessment.

I want you guys to have a little reality check.

Oftentimes, we're too busy to take our own reality check, to take our own pulse.

We're gonna spend actually the bulk of our time on strategies.

I wanna spend a little bit of time on the prom and the bulk of the time on the strategies.

Just enough time on the prom, just to say, to give yourself time to see where you're at.

She was working for the School of Nursing.

And just for sake of time, I'll just say we met in Dresden, which is a whole other story.

It was I was exercising, and my workout buddies never showed.

And I saw her, so I did a couple more pull-ups.

You know, you get that expansion courage in your arms.

Eric Nelson

A Combined Work – Physicians & Ministers

Dear Jesus, we're thankful for your blessings.

We're thankful for this conference, a time that we can come together and share, share about what you are doing in our lives, how it is you are using us to reach others.

We can hear testimonies from around the world about your work.

Now for the next short time here as we are thinking about a combined ministry, pastors and physicians working together, I ask that you would, through the power of your Holy Spirit, allow each person here to catch a new vision for something new that they can do to serve you and to hasten your coming.

Those of you who were here for song service this morning, I was amused by my father-in-law.

Far and near the fields are teeming, but of course he explained that we should be spelling it this way because who needs to be teeming up?

Physicians And ministers, or should we say pastors, because we're all ministers, exactly right, aren't we?

So pastors and physicians, pastors and doctors, we need to be working together.

So, far and near the fields are teeming, hopefully that will be true.

And then I already referenced Wes Pepper's talk.

He said this, I wrote it down, true ministers and true physicians aren't that different.

All of them are supposed to be working for the eternal good of every single soul that they come in contact with.

So, physicians and ministers aren't really that different.

This talk is kind of a follow on last year.

I worked with, yeah, Elvin Adams was here.

I shared with Patty Guthrie and with my pastor Chris Anderson.

And we talked about the tale of 2 churches.

South Bay is a church that I attend and it's a very different church than the Mount Shasta Church where Patty Guthrie attends, but both of us, our churches have this in common that we read Alvin Adams book And if you have not read this book, then talk with this gentleman over here and figure out how you can get 1.

I ordered a couple cases of them, and I give them to every single person who is active in health ministry at our church, and I ask them to read it, so that we're all on the same page.

It's very practical, and principles and practice of health evangelism.

This is kind of the stuff that Chris Anderson and I were kicking around for this talk.

These things in bold are some of the things that we were most interested in sharing and it's highly ironic that Chris is not here to help me out.

We're supposed to be a team and Chris, if you're listening to this on Audioverse, I still haven't quite forgiven you for ditching me.

We're in the middle of our evangelistic series and he's preaching tonight on baptism.

And so he couldn't really be here and follow up on all the interests that have been created there.

We have several people there attending as a direct result of our health evangelism, at least 2 that I can think of.

1 is a Catholic and the other, I'm not sure what his background is, but It's been inspiring to be able to work together with Pastor Chris in this evangelistic series.

He works together with us on all the health evangelism of the church.

I think he's the emcee or there to provide spiritual support and a spiritual thought at pretty much every single program that we do.

And just 2 days ago I had to share about the Mark of the Beast at the Evangelistic Series.

So that was, that was exciting to be able to participate in that, and then the week before I was able to preach about Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 and the United States and Bible prophecy and those sorts of things.

I think it's important that pastors and physicians work together in both of these realms, don't you?

He should have been here to talk a little bit more about this.

It was as a result of coming to Amen that he became excited about health evangelism and kind of by way of personal biography, I am the health evangelism coordinator for our church.

But I have to say it was actually, it's not usually the way it works.

Usually there will be some physician or other health care professional at a church that says, we need to do some health evangelism.

I just went to Amen and this is going to be exciting, let's do it.

On our church, we were already doing some health evangelism, largely as a function of being planted recently from the Eastridge Church, which is very active in health work.

But Chris Anderson came to AMEN and read the Principles and Practice of Health Evangelism, and he was the 1 who came to me and said, we need to do more of this, we need to do it this way.

And that was inspiring to see how he was able to connect with another pastor here from the Greenville Church, Jeremy Arnall, and they're of course very active in health evangelism as well, and share ideas and see how things are working back and forth.

So I wish he was here to share his perspective on some of those things, but again he has to preach about baptism tonight, so I guess we'll give him a pass this time.

I also want to say that there's a little bit of a holy competition here between Greenville and South Bay.

There are, I think, 10 families from the South Bay Church here, and I think that's a testament to how excited we have become about health evangelism.

And of course, I think the Greenville Church only has 5 families here.

Maybe next year, they'll take the lead again.

What can you do to have your church, your entire church become excited about health evangelism?

So we're gonna talk about some of these things And here are the learning objectives that were printed in the program.

If you need CME, be sure to sign your name out at the booth and you'll have to fill out a online evaluation of this course and how well we do at covering these 3 learning objectives.

I'm not quite sure of the best way to go through this.

Because I just so happen to have 10 quotations from the Spirit of Prophecy.

And we're going to take a short break while you read it, think about it, and then I'm going to come around with this microphone and ask you to share your thoughts about what that quotation says about ministers and physicians working together.

So take just a moment to read that over, meditate on it, think about it.

We'll also have them on the screen, and just because you're not limited to sharing about your own quotation, you'll be able to look at everyone else's as well, and if there's some additional thoughts, we'll share those as well.

It'll take about 2 or 3 minutes right now just to think about that, pray about that.

If any of you have additional quotations in the back of your mind that you'd like to share, feel free to look those up on your iPhone.

And we will...I'll set a timer here for about 2 or 3 minutes and we'll talk together some more.

So I'm gonna walk around try to do all of these things at once.

I think we've put it on the screen so everyone is that the 1 you have up there?

I think it is Why don't you just read that and then tell us some of your thoughts on it?

All right So let the medical workers present the important truths of the third angels message from the physician viewpoint Physicians of consecration and talent can secure a hearing in large cities at times when other men would fail.

As physicians unite with ministers in proclaiming the gospel in the great cities of the land, their combined labors will result in influencing many minds in favor of truth for this time.

It's very much self-explanatory, but as healthcare providers, we are seen by our patients as all knowing where to go to.

They invite us into their intimate lives.

And therefore, they tend to trust the doctors or the healthcare provider.

Now, Sister White says that if the Christian physician or Christian healthcare provider, if we surrender our lives to Christ and allow him to work with us and in us, then of course we can do far more, reach people that even some gospel workers are unable to reach.

And I can give you some some of my stories.

I had a local physician called me a couple months ago.

She sent me a text and she said oh I'm on my last cycle of chemotherapy.

Thomas Sanders

Sharing Jesus in an Optometric Practice

Lord, we're human beings here that seek your wisdom.

We seek for you to come into our lives and change us.

I ask that you will bless me as I speak and as we share how much you mean and where you're leading in our lives.

So bless us now as we go in Jesus' name, amen.

Have you had the patient that comes back, the staff says He's back again.

And he came through, we gave him a nice pair of glasses and he had only Medicare A.

So, you know, that doesn't even pay for the Medicare, for the eye exam.

And so we, he paid for the glasses and he was a happy camper, you know, and no problems at all.

Because back in 2015, or 16, I think, I have to look at my dates, and orders another pair of glasses, His vision had changed.

He started seeing a little early cataract.

He had a little decrease in vision, so I didn't know CT on him.

I wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't seem to be affecting his vision.

And so he ordered another pair of glasses and his frame was pretty beat up and so he ordered another frame.

I don't see him for another year, a year and a half, almost 2 years.

He comes back, comes to the office, comes for the next exam.

When they come back and I said, well why didn't you bring them back?

He said, we have for the first 3 months, Hoya gives me a free redo.

There's no cost, no, you or me, you can get a free pair of glasses and I'll change it.

It didn't look like, his vision had dropped a little bit.

He had started a little more cataract formation.

And so we fit him a new pair of glasses, and he gets the EX-3, he gets the transitions, he gets everything, you know, and it's an expensive pair of glasses.

A month later, he comes back, not working.

So we put him through the exam, it showed very little change and I'm saying this doesn't make sense.

And so we redo the glasses and he goes away for 6 months this time and comes back and says they're still not working.

A little epiretinal membrane, the macular pucker.

And that's on his other eye, the right eye.

And so we know his vision is cataracts are slowly getting worse.

And so, and he doesn't, Glasses aren't working, isn't working again.

And then we start talking, we said, What interest do you have?

Because I have VA referrals a lot coming to our town because we don't have a VA clinic nearby.

So they refer a lot of patients just for an exam.

And they go down to the VA and get their glasses.

I said, the VA will pay for your glasses.

I say, hey, you know, here's your, I'll give you a prescription, take it down to the VA after this, and I said, they'll give you per glasses.

And they said, you know, also, I'm getting double vision.

And, you know, cataract can get a slightly doubling in times.

And, but I measure a little vertical for you about 2 diopters now, which is totally new because I check that every time.

And so we put a little vertical prison, change the prescription a little bit, he takes it down to the Veterans Association.

They give him a pair of glasses, about 3 weeks before they have them made for him.

He brings them back to the office, all wrapped, never been opened yet.

He says, I haven't opened, I was afraid to open them and he said, I don't, I want you to check them first.

And I check them and the VA didn't put the prism in.

So we send him back to the VA and they get him fixed again.

And the last time he comes back in, not the last time, but the time when he finally brought those glasses in, and we put them on him.

He says, I've been talking to my pastor about this, and I want him to pray for me.

I'm saying, why am I not praying about it?

And right then in our office, I put my arm around him, because he's a nice guy.

The staff are looking at me and my daughter, who's my office manager, saying, you should be charging each of these rechecks.

So we have a nice word of prayer and I've never seen anybody he just relaxed.

It just made a difference that the prayer time with that patient made a big difference.

He came back in about a week ago before we came in, and he said, I've been worrying him for 2 months.

His epiretinal membrane is probably increasing.

But prayer, it's so easy to forget sometimes when you're in trouble and you can't figure out what's going.

If I can get this going here, let's see, now push.

If you will go to work as Christ designs that His disciples shall, and win souls for Him, you will feel the need of a deeper experience and a greater knowledge in divine things, and will hunger and thirst after righteousness.

You will plead with God, and your faith will be strengthened, and your soul will drink deeper draughts at the well of salvation.

Encountering opposition and trials will drive you to the Bible in prayer, and you will grow in grace and knowledge of Christ and will develop a rich experience." Every day we go to the Bible.

The Bible is your first food, it should be your first food.

And I regret my younger days, I did have first, but I did not make the Bible my primary food.

Because now as we get older, we realize we're not gonna last forever.

I had 2 stints in my heart 3 and a half years ago, and I know I'm human.

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Series

Breakout Session A

Sharing Jesus in an Optometric Practice

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Professional longevity; Circumvent burnout

35m

A Combined Work – Physicians & Ministers

54m

Sharing Jesus in an Optometric Practice

43m

Hormones and Emotional Intelligence

59m

Sound Doctrine