Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.

AMEN Australia 2018: Healing, Surviving, Thriving

<p>Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.</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 Australia

Andrew Jasper

Harnessing the Health Professionals in Your Church

Let's start by just defining what a health professional is in our church.

Who are the health professionals that we may tap?

That's a general physios Now what does it mean to be in your church?

What types of things could we bring these people into in order to help?

Dinner with just about any professional, but health professionals are good.

You bring out a group of people, Adventists invite their friends, There's a physician there or other health professional, you provide them a meal and then there's a lecture or a talk on a relevant topic within your community spoken on by a person with some credibility.

So all the different programs that we have, Live More, et cetera, those type of programs sometimes have space for health professionals to come in and augment.

Any other kind of health outreaches that...

Preaching or otherwise, I was thinking even in our churches, doing like a health nugget.

We haven't done this in a while, but some churches actually do a health nugget within their service.

That would be nice to have a health professional come into that space because health ministry isn't just for the community, is it?

There's 1 more up here in outreach programs.

What type of professionals can you use in Health Expo?

Nurses, doctors, consult, they don't even always have to be a health professional per se, but it's getting that team together.

Some of our health expos in Victoria require, well, some of the more extensive ones, it depends how extravagant you want to get, but we have up to 60 people volunteering for a health expo just on 1 day.

They do shifts so the doctors aren't flooded all day long, but there is a doctor consult.

That's probably not the right word to use because that's kind of an official word.

But anyway, there's a consultation with a physician after you've gone and gotten your results.

And it's really neat to see that teamwork approach.

I don't know if your church does newsletters anymore or church websites, but that's another place where health things can be.

So a recipe club is, If you've ever seen those, you're demonstrating a few recipes, you have a health talk, and then there are samples.

My church experience has been about 10 minutes for the health talk, so it just depends how involved that is.

So here's the people, types of health professionals.

Here's kind of what we're wanting to harness them for, or some of the elements that we could utilize them for.

Here's what I just want to end on, because we do need to go upstairs here briefly, and that is when you want to harness, the phrase here is harness.

It's probably not the most natural, organic word, because I'm like, ugh, get it on.

First of all, know what you want from your health professional.

I believe this is very important, since seeing that Antoinette's in the room.

I remember when I was pastoring back at Warhol Church.

We were about ready to run our CHIP program.

And I was just, back in the old days, CHIP had quite a staff requirement.

And I was still in that old school, old mindset.

And so I was just going to people and saying, can you be involved in the health, can you be involved in our CHIP program?

And Antoinette responded, I don't know if you remember this Antoinette, But she responded by saying, what do you want me to do?

And I went back to my new manual for the new CHIP program.

There's nothing for you really to do anymore.

What they've done with the new CHIP program is they kind of reduced our dependence on staff.

So it wasn't intrinsic in the manual anymore.

I had to think back, how could I utilize that person?

I think this is important so it's not nebulous.

Ensure that what they present is going to align with the principles of your program.

Now, this is no offense to people of different health perspectives.

Different programs have different emphases.

For instance, you look at 1 of the contrasts between the CHIP program and the depression recovery program.

1 of the distinct contrasts is CHIP has a very low fat content, fairly low fat.

That's not as much of a concern in the depression recovery program where they have a lot of food items that are potentially a little higher in fat, but they're healthier fats.

So that might be a difference, and there's different reasons for that.

So it's not that different programs are in conflict with each other, they're just different, and that's okay.

What you want to make sure is that the program you've got, and the health profession you've got, are going to align.

The reason for that isn't that there might not be great scholarly debates about this program or that program.

The issue is you don't want to confuse your community.

There are so many philosophies of health out there, you want your program to be monolithic, kind of a logic that goes through.

So just ensure that whoever you bring in is going to align with that program's ethos and principles.

And lastly, I just want to say, most of the people on the left here are extremely busy people.

And don't ask them to work in your program every night unless they're part of your team.

But if you're bringing in somebody from outside of the normal team, just respect their time and spread that responsibility, perhaps, across several people, not just 1 person.

Nedley even mentioned this the other day in 1 of his talks, we actually had a physician who stopped coming to church because whenever she went to church, she was bombarded by people asking her opinions.

Remember what he said about free service on Sabbath?

And she wasn't even in an office, this was a church, and it just got too much for her and she stopped coming.

So just be mindful that you respect these people are very knowledgeable, they can add credibility to your program.

Often times, well I should say it this way, sometimes the programs we utilize can become dated.

And these people, many times if they're on top of their game, they can bring fresh information to your program.

So, utilizing them and harnessing them into it is really good.

And lastly, I just want to say, 1 thing you can also do is talk to them about what they can offer.

Engage them in the whole process of what programs you give.

So while Paul just talked here about, some of you weren't here, but Paul just talked about finding out what's in your community, this is where you can find out what's in your church, what you can offer.

And some of the health professionals, by the way, aren't just in your church.

Sometimes you can use health professionals from the community.

And again, if they align with your group.

Sometimes, somebody was saying a second ago, they have more of an elderly population in their church.

You might utilize for a health screening some local people to do the blood pressures, or the blood draws, or the cholesterol checks.

And there's not a lot of moment for them to do a lot of deep educating, they're just providing that service.

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Harnessing the Health Professionals in Your Church

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