AMEN 2006: The Right Arm, the Right Approach, Right Now

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2006 Plenary Sessions

Lorayne Barton

Serving God, Saving Souls: The Purpose of Medical Evangelism

AMEN 2006 Progress Notes, Part 1

Don Mackintosh

God’s Right Arm Revealed

Rod Willey

Pews to People

Arthur Weaver

Health Education as Introductory Contact

AMEN 2006 Progress Notes, Part 2

Ted N.C. Wilson

The Spiritual Foundation of the Right Arm

God’s Right Arm Resurrected

Naren James

Sam Soler

From Medical Practice to Ministry: The Experience of the Bluegrass Clinic

Mark Finley

Healthful Living through the Eyes of Grace

Jerry Finneman

Donn LaTour

Allen Lloyd

Phil Mills

Medical Ministry Panel Discussion

AMEN 2006 Progress Notes, Part 3

God’s Right Arm Connected

Zeno Charles-Marcel

Do You Want to be Well? The Challenge of FAITH in Clinical Practice

Thank you, dear God, we're grateful to you for this opportunity to be at this Amen Conference again.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to integrate ministry into our practices, and I just pray this morning as a Sam, Pastor Sam and I present this, our experience at the Bluegrass Clinic that will be an inspiration to someone, a physician, a dentist here, to further integrate ministry into their practice, their professions.

From medical practice to ministry is our subject today.

And This comes from Stanford, Kentucky, where a rural practice, about 3, 500 people in that community, and 40 miles south of Lexington.

It's 1 of the, we're about 40 miles south of Lexington.

There is 2 areas that we're working in, in Danville and Stanford, which is nearby.

Stanford is the second oldest city in Kentucky after Harrodsburg, settled I think in 1777, and I've been there 9 years now.

We have our practice of 7, 500 square feet.

We're in a building about 14, 500 square feet with 4 other tenants with us in the building, which we own.

And then this is a kind of a close-up view of our location there.

And this is some of our patients, give you an idea of what we do.

We're a full-scale family medicine practice.

I did a three-year family medicine residency.

In addition to that, I did a one-year family medicine and Obstetrics Fellowship in Spokane.

And so, do the full range from prenatal care all the way to geriatrics at a nursing home.

So it's a very varied practice, and I thought I'd show this 1 of my favorite patients, this kid, because just to remind you of the future, And I just think it's just fun to take care of the whole family.

So medical practice to ministry, my journey to medical evangelism is a topic in itself, but I thought I'd just lead into it by just giving you a brief overview.

And for those of you who have further interest, if you could look at last year's, I presented a plenary session last year on the Sunday, and it's available on the CD, so you could get more detail.

But basically, this is the same journey I'm hearing from many of our medical and dental practitioners that all of us have gone through.

It's a revival within the medical-dental community, The recognition that our practices are really God's practices and they are to be utilized for His glory and to uplift His name and to share His message.

Wiley yesterday, I had to go through the same process and through a very desert experience I came to grips with the fact that the Lord owns it all, including my practice.

And so I was, like many others, separating my church involvement very actively.

I actually did an evangelistic series using the New Beginnings in Lexington at the Hilton Hotel there with another colleague.

And I was doing all that, but not much was happening in practice.

And I actually attend church 40 miles away in Lexington.

And I began to realize there's, it just didn't make sense.

I'm driving 2 hours back and forth to do ministry at City, and here I am, I have patients walking through every day that I don't know what their spiritual state is.

And so, that led me to start a small thing, just praying for them, sharing literature.

And then from there, we went on to other things, such as we started to offer some programs.

I had a church member come in and do the depression recovery program produced by Neil Nedley.

And with that we generated Bible studies.

And so now every Friday afternoon, my office ends early at around 04:00, is our last patient scheduled.

I have a Bible study that goes on after that.

And then from there, we actually did some more innovative things.

We actually did a graduation for our Bible, for our graduates of the amazing facts Bible studies which we offer in the practice.

And so that's kind of the evolution of medical evangelism within our practice.

We also had a Brenda as a RN that I had from the local church came in and did some step fast program and then and basically tried to integrate ministry overall into the practice.

Now 1 of the things that really is a tribute to Amen, I came here last year and the way I got this vision for what we're gonna present here, the collaboration with Pastor Sam and myself, is hearing from John Taquado, who was here last year, and Doug Venn, his pastor, and he presented a different angle, and some of you may have read about this in the review in the clinics that could, that was the front page, and basically talked about how they had placed themselves on the employment of a local church working as a physician in collaboration with a pastor.

And so I went back and wondered how could we look at the other angle, a private practice physician collaborating with a pastor in ministry.

And so that's really my brief journey to getting to that.

In doing that, as part of the whole process I went through with integrating ministry into practice is I kind of had to revisit the motivation, the philosophical moral basis for what I do.

So 1 day after a deep devotional experience, I wrote down, I penned down my vision, mission statement for the practice.

And there's a lot involved here, but the 1 that I want to point out is that we itemize that every patient is recognized as a child of God and therefore of inestimable value in His sight and worthy of our highest service.

So ministry is front and center in our mission statement, in our vision statement.

Our mission is to help our patients to have life and have it abundantly.

So, very often when I talk to my patients, I say, you're not experiencing the abundant life, Could I pray with you?

And so we pray for them to experience the abundant life.

And as you notice at the end there, attention to the emotional and spiritual needs of our patients is up front and center as a part of the practice's mission.

Well, another part that we are doing right now, the whole presentation is geared and the whole objective of what we're doing in our office is geared actually toward church planting effort.

We're 11 miles away from the city of Danville, which is where our church planting effort is currently in progress.

Danville is a community that was rated by U.S.

News and World Report as 1 of the top 10 small towns to live in.

We think Danville has about 15, 000 population, serves a mini-metropolis for about 5 counties around, including ours.

It is also, it's called a city of firsts.

We thought this is a good time for us to have the first seven-day Adventist church.

So we're in the process of church planning and the practice and the efforts are geared towards that.

We currently already have a small group that meets at the Holiday Inn in Danville every Tuesday night.

We're meeting there and Pastor Sam and I lead out in that.

They have patients of ours from the practice and so that process is already ongoing.

And that's a group that's, I apologize for this, on my cell phone pictures I took this last Tuesday night, but that shows our group at the outreach in Danville.

Well, 1 of the things that I had to go through as I was preparing for this is to just, I think it's important for all of us as physicians and dentists, as doctors, to be aware of the philosophical, biblical spirit prophecy basis for what we do every day.

And 2 texts that come to mind I want to share is this 1 in Matthew 4, 24, which I think encapsulates well the ministry that Jesus brought.

Then his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments and those who were demon possessed, epileptics and paralytics and he healed them.

And I get this imagery of Jesus that when he passed through a particle location, it was never the same again.

People were healed, people were changed, people experienced the abundant life, and my dream is that every medical dental practice that we all practice in would carry forward that mission that Jesus started, and that's why I thought this text was insightful as we look at the philosophical basis for what we do.

And the other 1 which was shared some last night in the message is 1 that I find very dear to my heart, Mark 2.

And they came to him bringing a paralytic who was carried by 4 men, and when they could not come near to him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was.

So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

When Jesus saw their fate, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven you.

And there's a text that reminds me so often of why it is critical and the care that we give is actually incomplete without a spiritual dimension being addressed.

Because in this particular situation, Jesus did something rather unique and different.

Instead of the usual where he would heal physically and then, well, he's spiritual, he actually heals spiritually first.

And it made me, it should make all of us realize that there's a spiritual dimension to the care of that patient and, or there's a spiritual exacerbating factor in almost every encounter that comes before us, and as we keep that in mind, we'll be more actively engaged in the whole aspect of ministry and the practice.

And I looked at a few spirit of prophecy rationales for physician-pastor collaboration, And this 1, I think it's from Medical Ministry, I don't know how to caption it.

Christ declared that He came to recover men's lives.

This work could be done by Christ's followers, and it is to be done by the most simple means.

Families are to be taught how to care for the sick.

The hope of the gospel is to be revived in the hearts of men and women.

We must seek to draw them to the great healer.

So think of it, that's 1 thing that if we just practice traditionally offering just exactly what everybody else is offering, we are no different.

And Jesus is calling upon us and our calling as part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and part of our mission as a right arm is to seek to draw them to the great healer.

Medical ministry again, ministry to the physical and the spiritual are to blend, leading the afflicted ones to trust in the power of the heavenly physician.

Those who, while giving the proper treatments, will also pray for the healing grace of Christ, will inspire faith in the minds of the patients.

Their own course will be an inspiration to those who suppose their cases to be hopeless.

And so in keeping actively before us every day, and I as I keep actively before me, that aspect of inspiring faith in my patients through prayer, through sharing a promise from Scripture, I find that that drives every day the motivation for ministry and the practice.

It is the Lord's desire that every, that the very best of medical missionary physicians shall hold themselves in readiness to cooperate with ministers of the gospel.

This is 1 of the things that struck me as I thought of a collaboration with Pastor Sam, my local pastor, they are to be 1 with Christ, men through whom God can work.

No line is to be drawn between the genuine medical missionary work and the gospel ministry.

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Series

AMEN 2006 Plenary Sessions

From Medical Practice to Ministry: The Experience of the Bluegrass Clinic

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Breakout Session A

A Combined Work – Physicians & Ministers

54m

Health Ministry in Church

31m

The Application of Truly Wholistic Lifestyle Medicine

1h 33m

Lessons from the Great Physician

His Supporting Medical Staff

1h 13m

AMEN 2013: Breakout Sessions A

Partnering the Practice and Church for Explosive Church Growth

1h

Pointing to Jesus

Medical Ministry Fellowship: 5 Years in a Mission-Based Clinic

53m

Chad Kreuzer Weekend 2022

The Psychology for Health & Healing

57m

Breakout Session C

The Cutting Edge: Getting Back to Our Calling

1h

The Gospel of Health

1h 7m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

ASI Members In Action

1h 57m

Plenary

The Cross: It’s Prophetic & Healing Significance

45m

Sound Doctrine