AMEN Australia 2020 Conference: Centres of Influence

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Andrew Pennington

Jesus the Ultimate Centre of Influence

And it's lovely to see those of you who are here today.

And I have the privilege of doing a short devotional.

And today, as you probably know, we have Dr.

And I think David will introduce, or Cynthia will be introducing him a little bit later.

So I have just a very short devotional before we enter into the main program.

And it's going to really include 1 very obvious point, but just to re-emphasise, another pretty obvious point too, but perhaps slightly less obvious.

And I've entitled my devotional, Jesus, the Ultimate Centre of Influence.

And the other, I guess, title I could also say is the power of a team.

So the first point I wanted to make is going through the story of Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus.

And if you have your Bibles with you, you can, I don't have any PowerPoint or anything, I'm just gonna be talking?

So you're welcome to reach for your Bible.

And I've actually got quite, I'm using a few modern translations which I've really appreciated.

I'm reading from the New Living Translation to just read through this story briefly.

And it says that they reached Jericho and as Jesus and his disciples left town a large crowd followed him.

A blind beggar named Bartimaeus son of Timaeus was sitting beside the road.

When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth were nearby, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

But he only shouted louder, son of David, have mercy on me.

When Jesus heard him, he stopped and he said, tell him to come here.

So they called the blind man, cheer up, they said, come on, he's calling you.

Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up and he came to Jesus.

What do you want me to do for you, Jesus asked.

My rabbi, the blind man said, I want to see.

And Jesus said to him, go for your faith has healed you.

Instantly, the man could see and he followed Jesus down the road.

There are multiple examples in the Gospels of Jesus doing similar styles of healing, and lots of people around him and they were obviously attracted.

But the first point I wanted to just make from this is, how did Bartimaeus know about Jesus?

Because he was blind, so he clearly couldn't see any of Jesus' works.

So the most obvious answer to that question, of course, is that he'd heard it before, and it's very likely that he had heard about what Jesus had done and the many healings that Jesus had done in other parts of the land.

And so you have a situation here where the ultimate centre of influence, essentially, who is Jesus, His fame has gone before him because others have told people about him and in Bartimaeus' situation this obviously stirred some faith in him And then he found himself able to say, Jesus, heal me, son of David, have mercy, have mercy on me.

And Jesus, of course, obliged because of his faith.

So the encouraging factor here for us of course is that Bartimaeus firstly heard about Jesus and he had the faith kindled from that situation and many people will have heard about Jesus.

Some, not many perhaps, have a poor concept of Jesus and some will have a good concept and then it will take an experience with Jesus for them to take the next step And that's why Jesus is the ultimate centre of influence, because when you experience forgiveness, grace and mercy, you actually know what the gospel is about yourself and you're able to share it with others.

And the second point I just want to make briefly is a personal story in our clinic.

For those of you who don't know, I run Century Lifestyle Clinic, which is a general practice focused on lifestyle and integrative medicine, and it's a holistic centre of influence.

And I just want to talk to any of you who, well, I mean, it's relevant to everybody, but it's about the power of a team.

Sometimes we think about the importance of a health professional and how, you know, what we need to do to be a center of influence and what we need to do to represent Jesus to others.

But I tell you, I'm going to tell you a story about, that really is about my receptionist.

And we had a patient who came in not that long ago, and actually, I've actually got a fairly long wait list now for people to see me, and he called up and he was absolutely desperate.

He'd had a really, really itchy rash on him for 10 to 20 years, and it was getting worse and driving him mad.

And if you've ever had an itchy rash, you know how annoying it can be, right?

Now, I generally make a rule that I don't speak to patients prior to actually consulting them because it just muddies the waters of medical legal stuff.

And so I usually insist that a patient will come and see me before I'm prepared to give any medical advice.

In this situation though, the gentleman was desperate and I advised, I said, look, all right, well, look, go and do such and such a test.

And when we can get you a cancellation, we'll get you in to see me.

And the way my receptionist dealt with him was very, was very respectful and very merciful and polite and pleasant.

And he came to see me, we got him in on a cancellation, he came to see me, I did a comprehensive assessment as you do and then I had a look at his rash and went, gee, okay, there's a couple of things I think we need to do.

I want you to see a dermatologist and I want you to try some dietary things and we'd also done some tests to find out that he was very, very low in his zinc, which was probably contributing to him not being able to heal his rash very well.

So I put him, you know, we put a plan of supplements, et cetera, together.

And then, Actually, beg your pardon, beg your pardon.

This was, we'd done the, we'd ordered some tests first.

And then I got him to come, I got him to come back and see me.

And the second time he came back to see me, he was very impressed with what I'd said to him and very happy with the way we'd explained.

And he was, his demeanor was even, it was a little bit more relieved and he was very happy and he said to me you know what I he was a builder by trade I've worked for lots lots of people including a few doctors I've gone to lots of practices and I've seen the way the receptionists deal with their patients and it's very clear that some of them are just in it for a job and don't really care and they don't treat them very nicely.

Your receptionist went out of her way to help me.

And I knew, he said to me, that it would be a good experience when I came to your practice.

And that was before he had anything to do with me.

And I thought, wow, I mean, I already knew this, but it just really reinforced to me the importance of a team in your medical context.

And I realized that not every 1 of you have the luxury of choosing your team of people you work with, but a center of influence is not only the doctor or the dentist or the dietician, it is your whole team.

And the receptionist is extremely important at providing a good centre of influence or a good, I guess, experience for the patients who are coming.

And you know what his next question was to me?

And I said, such and such Adventist church.

And then we had a spiritual conversation.

And so I want you to be encouraged that the way we behave, right from the receptionist through to the practitioner, is vitally important to be a center of influence for Jesus.

And that's all I really wanted to say tonight.

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Jesus the Ultimate Centre of Influence

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