NAD Health Summit 2012

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NAD Health Ministries

Track 2 & 3 Seminars

Allan Handysides

Foundations of Health Ministries, Part 1

Before we begin, I would like us to have a word of prayer because I feel that it's necessary for us to have the word of prayer.

Gracious Father in Heaven, we pray that you will be with us this morning and bless us as we attempt to go through some of the foundational concepts that are undergirding health ministry.

Help us to learn to be compassionate like Jesus, loving like Jesus, missionaries like Jesus, incorporating not just a lifestyle but our very lives, health ministry.

Sometimes We are asked for the biblical basis of health ministry, particularly when it comes to questions such as vegetarianism and we are told that Jesus Christ ate fish.

And they say, where do you get this in the Bible?

They sometimes also are likely to ask us questions about alcohol.

Landless, being in charge of the temperance portion of the health ministry portfolio, is often asked that question.

Well, obviously, wine in the Bible was alcoholic.

They wouldn't say, you know, strong drinkers are raging if people hadn't been drinking alcoholic drinks.

And so the question that we would like to start off with is to answer what is the biblical basis.

If you read the policy, the General Conference Health Ministries policy, it requires, now this is a very interesting terminology, It requires of the membership an abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and unclean foods.

It doesn't say anything more about requirements.

That being the case, we ask ourselves why?

Why does the church not say this, that, and everything else?

Well, we believe, and it's not the Health Ministries Department that does that, but we believe in the wisdom of the General Conference Church Assembly, which meets together as the Executive Committee, for This committee represents all the unions in South America, all the unions in Africa, all the unions in Asia, all the unions in Europe, all the unions in Inter-America, all the unions in North America.

So we have representation from a global church, and in the wisdom of the global church, they have not required anything more than that.

Now you might say, well, why do we do that?

Well, we hope as we go through that you'll understand the Adventist church's focus on health stems for a concern for human well-being.

We hope that you will recognize there is a biblical and scientific basis for the Adventist lifestyle, and that we will introduce students to learn more about health for personal and community gain.

If you start in the Bible, we start reading, we say, what about the Bible?

White say in medical ministries about these things?

And she said, upon all created things is seen the impress of the deity.

The susceptible mind brought in contact with the miracle and mystery of the universe cannot but recognize the working of infinite power.

The fundamental foundational aspect of health ministry lies in the fact that God is our creator.

Now you may argue about how God did this or did that.

You may wonder about where the woman came from, Adam's rib, how was that done?

God brought us into being, And because of this, we believe most fervently that He as our Creator revealed His will and explanation to us in Genesis.

And we take the book of Genesis and we believe that is the way we have to understand things.

Now you know sometimes I read people saying, he paints the lily.

You know, I don't believe that God got down on his knees and said, let lilies come, and then sat down and painted different colors on them.

You know, that's a very simplistic approach that maybe we talk poetically about it like that.

We also believe, and this is foundational to the understanding of the biblical basis of our health ministry, he created us perfect, But we are fallen.

Now I once bought, when I was in Botswana, I liked malachite.

How many of you know what malachite looks like?

And in Africa they would carve various things out of it.

And usually the price of a carving would be anywhere in the days, I'm talking 30 years ago, would be at the price range of maybe 50 to 100 dollars for a little carving.

And I went into a store, and I saw a beautiful carved malachite rhinoceros.

And so I looked and picked it up, and the price, it was $14.

And I took it home and showed it to my wife.

And Janet said, well, it looks very nice.

But you know, as they say, I might be a good doctor.

She said, but you see, this leg has been broken off and glued back on.

No longer worth what I thought it was worth, but not so when it comes to us.

You see, though we were broken, God still valued us.

He didn't devalue us like that store did.

That's also a basis for understanding health ministry Because we bring to the ministry the gracious compassion, acceptance, and value of every single 1 of God's creatures, broken, worse or not.

They are worth the blood of Jesus Christ.

Because upon all created things is the impress of deity.

Creation story leaves no doubt as to the purpose of God in having all things well, but it was disobedience that carried the consequences of death.

It is not his will that we should be sick.

So Adventists bring to the understanding of pain and disease and death this very important concept.

I have to interrupt you, but since you're roaming about, we actually need somebody to move the camera, and it wasn't started.

I choose him because he's most likely to be able to do it well.

I'm going to do just a very quick monitoring check.

So someone's going to ask you, tell us who you are, and when you see me, you can go.

So welcome to this group on the foundations of health.

I'm the Health Ministries Director for the General Conference.

And I'm here to talk about, this morning, the biblical basis of our health ministry.

They're going to edit this, so this is how it is on Hope Channel, we can make mistakes.

Peter Landless

Foundations of Health Ministries, Part 2

Peter Landless, and I'm very grateful to be with you.

We're going to be talking through some very interesting and very important components of what health is all about, the foundations of health, but primarily, the foundation of health is Jesus.

We hope you're going to enjoy and benefit from your time together with us.

Okay, for those of you who thought that this little walk that you had now was part of the daily exercise of Dr.

Not so, We were out this morning, and I have to tell you this with a little bit of sacred pride.

5.30 this morning found us walking out in the dark, getting our, how many ever steps we got in this morning, and cutting it a little bit short, because we needed to be back in time for worship and to get on with the day, which you're all part of that day.

We've heard about the foundation, the spiritual foundation of health.

We started that this morning in the devotional, and we know that that foundation is Jesus.

We're now going to look at spirituality and the healthy lifestyle.

And I really would like us to, whenever I talk about lifestyle, and Dr.

Handy Sides will speak for himself, but I think when he talks about lifestyle, we mean a way of life.

Remember the jackets where they had different lapels and more double-breasted jackets than they are today?

But a way of life is what we really need to look towards.

And so we look at spirituality and the healthy way of living.

On completing this component, we would like you to understand that health can be influenced by spirituality.

So the way that we relate to God actually affects the way we live and enjoy our health.

We would like to see that a healthy way of life is a form of stewardship.

You heard about the motorcycle from the Philippines that was broken.

Wasn't great stewardship from the little boy, but he didn't know better.

And this is reflected in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And I deeply empathize with the question about the Bible being written today as opposed to then.

These are the arguments people give us all the time.

But we work from the foundation of scripture alone as it stands.

We should grasp that spirituality can lead to a wholeness even when spiritual health, when physical health is lacking.

It's interesting to me and maybe to you, and I remember as a family practitioner my background is family medicine, internal medicine, and cardiology.

And I would always remember and notice that the individuals who were the sickest, who had the greatest problems, who were struggling the most, who were having the chemotherapy, having all the treatments, those are the people I'd say, how are you?

And then I would have patients coming in with a bit of a ruddy nose, and they were feeling coughing, and a little bit of a headache.

Spirituality can lead to a wholeness even when physical health is lacking.

And some of those individuals who are broken, who are broken.

You're going to hear the term wholeness in brokenness.

However quickly we may jog along the road or walk along the road or when we get out of the chair, I watch you get out of the chairs, and you start to feel, oh, I've been sitting here for quite a while.

We are broken, but we can have wholeness in our brokenness.

There's a great discussion about spirituality and health.

And I want to say right up front and put the disclaimer right in front of you.

And that is when we talk spirituality in this class, in this room, in this context, it's spirituality which is Christian.

It is the spirituality that centers around Jesus.

I will not forget that I was sitting in my office 1 day, and the phone rang.

And I picked up the phone, and there was a gentleman on the other end.

And he said, I am the dean of the School of So-and-so University, and We'd like you to come and speak to us during our summer school on public health about the Adventists' spirituality and their lifestyle.

So when he mentioned the name of the university, I didn't even know where it was.

He said, we'd like you to come down, and we have a three-hour course, and we'd like you to take it.

I said, so tell me, how do I, could you give me directions?

He said, you've got to go to the airport first.

Anyway, we worked out and went down to Atlanta and did the talk and had a wonderful time.

And what I really enjoyed was just interacting with students who weren't fully understanding of the Seventh-day Adventist faith, but wanted to know about our view on spirituality and health.

Straight after that, the dean, who was very kind and helpful, said, now let's go and get you something to eat.

I'd flown down to Atlanta, did the 3 hours of lecturing.

And it was now time to get to bed, but he was insistent, you've got to eat something.

I said, you know, I carry reserves just in case of things like this.

Anyway, we went to a place called Whole Foods.

And we walked around, and he selected, and I had to help his selections because he got a little stuck on some of the areas.

And as we were checking out, there was a magazine called Spirituality and Health.

A glossy, beautifully done, attractive, But it was a total new age philosophy.

But here were people, and the place was packed.

There was organic coffee, organic bread, organic everything.

Well, everything that contains carbon, really, if it's edible, is organic.

Anyway, it was a lesson to me as I stood there at the checkout and looked at what kinds of spirituality there are, and the kind that really matters.

Religion acting either directly through belief, practice, and commitment, or indirectly through effects on social support, mental health, can inhibit or promote the causes of illness that move among psychosocial stress, emotional illness, negative health behaviors, and inadequate medical care.

So religion plays a role in how we feel, how we conduct ourselves in our health.

Now it's very interesting that the definition, this definition was given by a man called Harold Koenig.

And he's made this his lifelong study, spirituality and health.

And he has a long and interesting journey.

Started out as a nurse, then went on and studied medicine, then became a psychiatrist.

And now his full-time research life is spent on looking at how people's spirituality affects their lives, their health, their social relationships, their well-being.

Foundations of Health Ministries, Part 3

Well, I think it's time for us to move on.

This is a difficult thing, you know, this conference is, you come here to work, you know, and Paul says if you don't work you can't eat, see, and so you have to work because they're going to give us lunch, so that's what we're going to do.

What I'd like to talk to you about now, I'd better go back and see that I'm at the right place.

I'd like to talk to you about something called whole person care.

Now we talk about whole person all the time, but you know if you get really down to the nitty gritty of it, it seems as though every health ministry specialist takes upon themselves a section of the health ministry that they really love.

They just love this particular part of it.

So you say, well, are we representing whole person care, or are we representing what we like?

His portfolio is to look after nutrition aspects of the health ministry.

Landless, he looks after the temperance side of things.

She's looking about resilience and at-risk behaviors in youth.

And then I'm at the general conference, and I talk about coordinating these things.

But I'm also talking about health professionals, working with the hospitals, on the medical schools that we've got.

And then we have some associate directors who are volunteers from Loma Linda.

Pat Jones, who is the associate director for nursing.

And then we have the associate director for public health, the dean of the School of Public Health, Dr.

And then we've got the dean of Allied Health School.

Dan Jiang, who's the associate dean for the School of Medicine there.

And he does medicine and helps me and that team as we work together as a team.

Health Ministry is not just teaching a vegetarian diet.

I mean, the Let's Move program that the North American Division is doing is fantastic, but it is not the totality of health ministries because each of us is a whole person with many, many needs.

We have the physical needs, but we have the mental needs, emotional needs, we have social needs, we have spiritual needs, and so it is important in health ministries that we know we will address intentionally, intelligently, and especially if you're a pastor, you will bring to your church the balance.

You will bring the balance of health ministry.

Because quite honestly, it is very possible for us to become fanatics.

It's very possible for us to become fanatical.

Anorexia is where somebody doesn't want to eat anything.

Orthorexia is that individual who is so focused that they are almost neurotically obsessive with eating right orthorexia.

These people have all the characteristics of an obsessive compulsive mentality.

It's important that the health ministry message is not taken over by those who are unbalanced in their approach to life.

And so we emphasize the whole person approach.

That is how we must do health ministries.

We must begin with health ministries in a broad and accepting way.

The prostitute came to see us over many years.

She didn't change from being a prostitute until she got well down in her experience.

We sent her children, my wife and I sent her children to the camp at school and she said to them, now don't steal anything.

She was in a culture, a subculture, a mindset, that required a major transition.

And health ministry does not mean that I'm going to talk to her about becoming a vegan.

And so in health ministry, I just want us to have this balance.

This sense of staying to the middle of the road and looking at people who they are.

This presentation is not exactly the way it's written, but the elements are in there.

We want to visit the gospel of health, as Ellen White called it.

The gospel of health, the good news of health.

Now, I'm not going to talk about it just from the way the department functions, but it is rather a pivotal and a central role in the witness and the evangelism of our church.

You see, people are more concerned with who we are.

Every time somebody comes and learns about Adventist, We went to the World Health Organization.

You know, before they really talk to us, they go and they Google us.

And when we go there, they know more about us than sometimes we even know ourselves.

Landless and I went to PAHO, and they were telling us about our strategic goals.

So, it's important in our witness to people that we truly represent who we are, not what we preach.

People are going to want to know, are we truly joyful?

They're more concerned about us, how we actually live.

I am tired of people saying, I'm a vegan, but I do like ice cream.

See, I don't care whether they like ice cream or not, but don't preface it with I'm a vegan, or I'm almost a vegan.

See, be who you are in fidelity to yourself, in fidelity to what people see, because your integrity speaks far louder than your words.

Don't pretend you are a vegan if, in fact, you're a lacto-ovo.

And don't pretend to be a lacto-ovo if, in fact, you enjoy roast beef and turkey dinners and you are eating a whole panoply of flesh foods.

Foundations of Health Ministries, Part 5

We're going to move now a little more quickly into some fundamental understandings.

Because the cell, some people think of it as just a little sack, a little paper bag if you like.

And in the paper bag are trundled all these elements of the cell, fats and proteins, carbohydrates, and that's the cell.

The cell is much more wonderful than just a bag of fluids.

You See, the cell, all cells derive from a fertilized ovum.

I want you to spend just a moment or 2 thinking about the magnificence of how we came to be.

There was a cell in your mother's ovary that divided in such a way that unlike the usual division where it replicated itself, it actually halved the number of chromosomes in the nucleus.

We'll be talking about this in a little more detail.

And so instead of 46 chromosomes in that ovum, we now had a 23 chromosome bearing cell called the oocyte.

And the sperm, similarly, came from spermatogony that were created in the testes of the male.

And the cells also underwent this division.

This division is called a meiosis, not mitosis.

So you can see, I'm wondering the pointer, which has got the light.

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Foundations of Health Ministries, Part 27

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