AMEN 2013: Following the Leader

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2013: Breakout Sessions C

Don Bovell

Transitioning from Acute Care to Lifestyle Medicine

Eddie Needham

Praying with Patients from a Christian Perspective

Fred Hardinge

Keys to Successful Comprehensive Health Ministry in the Local Church

There's something about Adventist audiences around the world that eschew the front seats.

It doesn't matter where I go, the front seats are usually the last to be taken.

But I'm delighted to have the opportunity of being with you today for this hour.

I always look forward to the AMEN Conference every time I've had the opportunity of being there.

I'm always blessed and inspired, and it's good to see our medical and dental professionals seriously interested in about in carrying out the work of the Lord.

Tomorrow morning I have the privilege of sharing with you just for a little bit about some of what is happening in health ministries around the world.

But There has never been a time in the history of our church that I'm aware of that from the highest levels of the church there has been an interest and a commitment to health ministry as there is today.

I have been involved in health ministry for more than 35 years, and I have never seen anything such as what we're seeing right now.

An annual council just finished, and annual council was led off.

The first 3 sessions were devoted to health ministry.

So For those of you who have a passion, as I do, about health ministry, it's a wonderful time to be living.

I want to just share with you some things that I've learned along the way.

I want to share with you a few of what I consider to be the essential elements to successful church-based health ministry.

And as we begin, I would just like to invite you to bow your heads with me in prayer.

Father in Heaven, we have been reminded today, especially in our devotional this morning, that without You and with Your blessing and Your Spirit, we can do nothing.

And so we invite Your presence into our midst once again this afternoon, asking that You would speak to our hearts, enlighten our minds, and strengthen us for the work that lies before is our prayer in Jesus' name, Amen.

Before we talk about those essential elements, I want to diverge for just a moment to ask the question, what is health ministry?

Now we're hearing the term comprehensive health ministry.

So rebranding of an old term, health evangelism, health ministry, whatever it is, it really is this, or comprehensive health ministry, it's really the same thing.

We probably all would give different definitions if I was to ask you to each write a definition down.

We're not going to take the time to do that.

And I would like to suggest to you this morning, or this evening, this afternoon, that health ministry is more than a set of scientifically established health principles and practices that can prolong and preserve life.

It's more profoundly important than its component parts of healthful eating, good exercise, stress management, drinking water, getting an adequate amount of sleep, the 8 natural remedies that we often refer to from Ministry of Healing, page 127.

It can also do far more than modern science has discovered.

I think we limited it when we talk only about the scientific principles, which are there and we can praise the Lord for that.

The Seventh-day Adventist health message, when rightly understood and when it's linked with scripture and with the God of scripture, can actually bring the dead to life.

I'll share with you in a few minutes a quotation in that regard.

And when we confine any part of the health message merely to its scientifically validated facts, we tragically shortchange our audience of the eternal benefits that are only available through Jesus Christ.

The health message is more than what it appears to be and what we often define it or think of it as.

The first essential element for successful health ministry, And I think it applies to the practice as well as to the church and to the community.

It applies anywhere we seek to do health ministry is that we must never forget to share Jesus as the only effective agent of change.

The Spirit of Prophecy told us in Ministry of Healing, page 424, that medical missionary work is in no case to be divorced from the gospel ministry.

The Lord has specified that the 2 shall be as closely connected as the arm is with the body.

And without this union, neither part of the work is complete.

The medical missionary work is the gospel in illustration.

I know they're the farthest ones forward, but we're a friendly group.

When I was first beginning in health ministry, I was freshly minted with a degree from Loma Linda.

I was excited about the possibilities that lay ahead.

I had been called to a large city, to a particular church that had struggled with traditional health evangelism.

The conference president said, we want to look at community health education.

We've been reading the Spirit of Prophecy, and we believe that this is the direction we need to go.

And so, without any previous experience, I accepted that invitation, and we moved, and I began my work.

And I planned a whole raft of health education programs in the community.

And during that first year and a half, I believed that I needed to establish relationships, and I needed to visit people in their home, and invite them to study the Bible, not just talk about nutrition and exercise and all the other good things we were talking about.

And so I would ask people if I could come and visit them.

And they'd say, sure, we'd be glad to have you come.

And I would go, and I'd knock on the door.

And they'd open the door, and they'd bring me in.

And they'd ask me questions about diet, they'd ask me questions about exercise, they'd ask me questions about smoking cessation, They'd ask me all the questions about all the things that they had been learning in the classes, in the church.

But when I would say to them, very carefully broach some spiritual question to them, They'd say, by the way, did you know it's going to snow tomorrow?

Or they'd say, do you know who's going to win the ballgame this weekend?

And it was very clear to me that they were not comfortable about talking about spiritual things.

About a year and a half into it, an old family friend called me up and said, could I come and stay with you?

Now, I realized that he was probably about my age today, but I thought he was a very old man then.

And he stayed with us for about 3 or 4 days.

We had an opportunity to talk in the car and I shared with him my frustration.

And on the morning he left, he said, I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes.

And he said to me, Fred, I've heard your heart cry.

He said, you must identify yourself as a spiritual person if you're going to be able to talk to people about spiritual things.

And I said to him, but it's in the church.

He said, Fred, if you're going to talk to people about spiritual things, you've got to identify yourself as a spiritual person.

But he said, you've got to do more than that.

And he said, well, I would suggest that you begin every class with a little inspirational thought.

He said it shouldn't be long, and it needs to be connected to the topic of the evening in some way.

He said, if you try and talk to them about the 2, 300 days and then talk to them about what they eat, he said, they're going to wonder what they got into.

But he said, if you'll talk to them about what the Bible says about what you're going to be talking about, and make it short, including a prayer, he said, I wouldn't take more than 3 or 4 minutes.

It was actually Later on, when I looked at all the data that I collected, and I was OCD about collecting data at that time.

But I realized that we were getting about 60% of our people were Jewish.

And I was told we were in a largely Jewish neighborhood.

Series

AMEN 2013: Breakout Sessions C

Keys to Successful Comprehensive Health Ministry in the Local Church

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Health Ministries Workshop

12 How to Transition from Health to Bible Studies

1h 6m

Lessons from the Great Physician

Lifestyle Medical Ministry Today

59m

The Example of Christ as the Great Physician

52m

True Education

Agriculture & Medical Ministry

51m

Health Ministry in Church

31m

Seminar: Lift Him Up

Health Message & Righteousness by Faith

1h 22m

The Sabbath and Atheism

1h

Plenary

Essential Elements of Effective Health Ministry

47m

Track 2 Seminars

Jesus Methods in the 21st Century, Part 9

1h

Health & Family

Helping Hypertension, Healing Communities

1h 14m

Plenary

Evaluating the Final Impressions

51m

Pastor/Physician Team

Spiritual Intervention in Medical Practice: Why, Who and How

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine