AMEN 2013: Following the Leader

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Mark Finley

John Osborn

Remote Area Medical: Volunteers Mobilizing Healthcare & Conference Summary

Des Cummings

The Patient Experience 1

The Patient Experience 2a

The Patient Experience 2b

Mark Ranzinger

Following the Lamb

Robert Hayes

Healing the Right Arm

Larry Cohen

Iron Heart

Jerry Page

Final Breakthroughs

Don Bovell

Fred Hardinge

Kelly Kinsley

AMEN Short-term Missions

It's a pleasure to be here with all of you.

Last year when we were with you we were sharing with you how we started our health ministry in our community and for those of you who were not there we just want to I want to give you a little recap on how we actually began.

It was several years ago when I gathered leaders from my church together to prayerfully evaluate how we were carrying out the Gospel Commission in our community.

We were really looking at how we were doing at reaching people for Christ and then effectively making them what we call healthy disciples of Christ.

And we realized we were kind of coming short.

So, we came up with a strategy which we feel that God had blessed us with that had 3 phases in order to bring the church back to its omissional focus.

We created discipleship classes that were designed to educate our church members as to really what church was all about.

And what's the role of the church members?

And by the time they get done with that discipleship class, we then interview them.

We discover where their spiritual gifts lie or where their interests or their passions lie.

And we actually place them in service in the community.

Phase 2 is looking at the community and assessing the needs of that community and We have chosen Isaiah 58, excuse me, excuse me.

Could somebody get me a little bit of water?

We have chosen the 58th chapter Isaiah to be our blueprint for reaching the people in the community.

God has promised there that if we would reach out to those that were in need, if we would relieve the oppressed, if we would take those that were poor and bring them to our home, that our light would shine, and that His glory or His character would be revealed in us.

So, we use that as our blueprint in assessing our community, but we also use it as a prayer.

Because we're praying, God, as we move forward, thank you so much, as we move forward to do what you've called us to do, you've also promised to bless us as far as your kingdom and the advancement of your kingdom.

Well, in assessing the community, obviously there was great needs, but we also wondered what would it be like if every church member was known for doing good in their community?

What if every church member had the witness that Jesus had?

Here in Acts chapter 10 we find that the Bible tells us how that God had anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him." What if everyone in our community recognized 7th-day Adventist Christians as people that were full of the Holy Spirit, had power, went about doing good in the community, and that they were relieving the oppressed, and that God was with them.

So that was our vision in our prayer, and it still is our prayer, that we would become a people who are known as the followers of Christ by the lives we lived and the examples that we lived and seeking to reach out and help those that were in our community.

Well, 1 of the needs that jumped out to us, of course, and it jumps out in every community is America's health crisis.

There is not 1 community among us, not 1 city, not 1 town, not 1 state that is not affected by America's health crisis.

All around us we see how the devil, you know, he's a thief, he's a liar, and he's a murderer, and he's destroying people just through people's lifestyle.

You don't have to bring America to war in order to defeat America, you just have to send them to Dunkin' Donuts.

Just send them to Dunkin' Donuts just to eat a standard American diet and you're going to destroy Americans.

From a pastor's perspective, it was very difficult for me to continue to pray over people and seek to help people in our community when I realized it was their lifestyle that was killing them.

And it was just turning in my spirit saying, I have to do something.

I have to do something in order to mobilize our people and to reach out to those people in our community.

And in our church, and I'm not speaking for your church, we have what we call, we had at the time what we called the withered right arm.

It wasn't quite totally dead, it was just withered and it was needing healing because we would hold health fairs once a year, we would hold a cooking class once in a while, and we would take blood pressures every now and then and that was considered the right arm of the message.

But that we knew wasn't going to impact the people in our community and carry the right arm of the gospel to those people in our community.

So as we made that assessment we prayerfully chose to go with Creation Health.

Now I know there's many wonderful health seminars at the Adventist Church, the CHIP program, New Start.

And the most important thing is, is like what 1 doctor said when somebody asked him a question, what's the best exercise that anyone can do?

What's the best health program that you can use in your community, the 1 that you do.

Not the 1 that you talk about doing, the 1 that you do.

You see, we have a Florida hospital in town and they weren't doing anything with Creation Health and they had kind of got it going.

So we knew that that would be a great tool by which to use that seminar for Creation Health.

We knew it was important for us to build a team, so we prayerfully chose team.

Everybody that's a team member has to go through Creation Health.

But right below him in the blue shirt is Gary.

When Gary came to us, he was living on 5 to 8 ibuprofen a day.

His arthritis was so bad that his wife said he walked like a penguin.

And so Gary came to us and by applying the principles that he had learned, his arthritis is 99% disappeared.

He's got a little bit left in his knuckle.

And Gary, not only did we baptize Gary, we baptized his wife, we baptized his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, and his sister-in-law.

And Gary is about to become an elder in our church.

He's a very committed and dedicated individual.

So all of the individuals on our team have been through Creation Health and they're passionate about the health message.

And that's what you're looking for obviously on a team.

Miller, again, a physician that's working with us.

Everybody's busy, but we're grateful that when people manage their time as such that he comes and helps us because, you know, with the combination of a pastor and a physician, I just think it's 1 of the best combinations going.

Of course I'm a pastor, but the combination of the 2 of us is just great.

He addresses the health issue, we're there from a spiritual perspective and it's just a great combination.

We're blessed to have that team, again, our team there.

We, when we first started teaching creation health, we realized that the information was 1 thing, changing habits was another.

So that's when we started to, we trained them through a program that would make them become health lifestyle coaches that we would call them.

It was a program through Adventist Source.

I can't remember the author's name, but it gave us some tools for them to work with.

And at the end of each session, we break out for 20 minutes and the lifestyle coach meets with that group.

So our purpose is for them, number 1, is following Christ's methods.

We wanted to take this statement, and I know it's probably 1 of the most used statements amongst health people in the Adventist Church, but Christ's methods alone would bring true success in reaching the people.

The Savior mingled with men as 1 who desired their good.

And then he bade them follow me." So the lifestyle coach is winning their confidence of the people because they're there in a small group.

By the time we're done with 8 weeks, there's a bond between the coach and the people.

It's a tremendous bond that we then allow the coach to carry that over when the seminars end to work with the people.

We are sharing with our lifestyle coaches, look, what we want you to do is sympathize with them.

We just want you to love them, but we also want to train you as the Holy Spirit leads when you're ready to bid them to follow me.

So we wanted to take this statement and make it practical to those who were working with us so that they could become effective, obviously, in reaching people for Christ.

Series

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Healing the Right Arm

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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Sound Doctrine