NAD Health Summit 2012

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NAD Health Ministries

Track 2 Seminars

Mark Finley

Jesus Methods in the 21st Century, Part 1

Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege of coming together to study your Word and to discover how we can be more effective witnesses for you, how our churches can come alive in knowing you and serving you and being the active outreach centers that you long for them to be in the community.

We pray that every Adventist church that we represent would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that every member would be converted and led to you and that our churches would have a vision for the community of leading men and women and boys and girls to Jesus.

Lord, in this class, expand our minds, enlarge our vision, Help us to see the potential for our own ministries wherever we serve, whether we are pastors or lay leaders.

But help us get things here that we can apply, that can make a difference.

Lord, we're living too late in Earth's history simply to mark time.

We're living too late in the history of this world simply to come to a seminar and go home to the same people.

And we pray that you would work your transformation in us.

A number of years ago, in fact, it was just 3 years ago now, I was teaching for Southern Adventist University.

I was teaching master's students on the book.

And so it was a master's class on church growth.

And I said to my students the first day of class, this is what I'd like you to do.

I'd like you to take the Bible, read the Book of Acts, read it through in 1 or 2 settings.

It'll take you about 4 hours to read it through.

Read it through thoughtfully, carefully, and prayerfully.

After you have read the Book of Acts through once, go through it a second time and list the major church growth principles that you find and discover in the Book of Acts.

List for me what you see happening there.

What was it that was so dynamic and exciting about the Book of Acts that caused the church to grow?

And then write for me a five-page paper on that topic.

My students came back and as they began to read the papers, I had about 16 students in the class, as they began to read the papers, I was probably more amazed than I should have been.

When I looked at the papers, it looked as if the papers were essentially the same.

The students had been reading the Book of Acts, and they had grasped the reality of what was going on there.

They had sensed what God was doing in the Book of Acts.

In the Book of Acts, we find universal principles that enable us to understand how the Church grows.

These universal principles are different than methods.

But I really should begin by defining for you the difference between a method and a principle.

Those 2 characteristics are characteristics of a principle.

That means a principle can be applied at any time.

A method tends to be limited in time, where a principle, you can apply it in the first century, you can apply it in the ninth century, the 10th century, you can apply it in the 18th century, the 21st century.

So a principle is always eternal in time.

If, Let me give you an example of that, gravity.

If I throw an apple up in the air in the first century, it's going to come down.

And if I throw it up in the 21st century, it's going to come down.

If I stand up on this, and I'm not going to try it, I'll tell you.

But if I stand up on this stool, and I step off and fall off, wherever, whenever I do that, first century, third century, 10th, I'm going down, It's the same with universality.

A principle that is universal applies to all peoples, all times all peoples.

For example, if a Jamaican man smokes, it's not going to have any effect in his lungs because he's a Jamaican man, but if an American man smokes, it's going to have effect on his lungs because he's an American, right?

Jamaican lungs are different, though, aren't they?

See, smoking, they're universal principles, aren't they?

If an African man or an Indian man or a South American man or an American man eats a high fat diet, he's going to be predisposed to heart disease, right?

So a high fat diet, that's a universal principle.

So a principle has to be universal in time.

It has to be eternal in time and universal in scope.

A principle eternal in time, universal in scope.

So what we want to do is we want to look at church growth principles in the Book of Acts that are eternal in time.

They apply in the first century, they apply in the 21st century.

They apply in the, and they're universal in scope.

They apply in the Bronx, or they apply in a little village in the heart of Africa.

Now, methods are neither universal in time or eternal in scope.

A method may work in 1 place, but it may not work in another place.

A number of years ago, I was going to hold an evangelistic meeting in the Philippines.

And I get off the airplane and they have this big sign, welcome Dr.

And the conference president came to me and he said, now, Pastor Finley, we are going to have our major advertising for your meetings tomorrow.

You're going to hold your meetings at Bicol University.

You will sit on the back of the truck on a little chair.

And as you sit there on that little chair on the back of the truck, there will be a police car in front with a megaphone on it, and we'll be shouting out, Welcome Dr.

All the pastors will run on the side of the truck and give out handbills to the crowd.

There'll be balloons on the truck saying, welcome Dr.

Do you think we might use that in New York City, Times Square, that method?

A truck down the center of the street with all the balloons out, what do you think?

What would happen if we did that, pastor may end up in jail, right?

Merely because a method works in 1 place does not mean the method is gonna work in the next place.

During this class, we're looking at principles that worked in the first century and that will work in the 21st century.

And let me kind of give you a resume of the week, what's going to happen this week.

This week, in the first class, I'm going to set out these eternal principles for you.

We're going to look at 5 eternal principles.

It may take me 3 hours to set them out this morning, but that's going to be, I want to do that well because that's our foundation.

Then I will take these 5 principles with my wife and apply them to local congregations in the context of health evangelism.

But I'm going to give you a much broader foundation in the first presentation than health evangelism.

And so this morning we're going to go through the book of Acts, look at strategic planning for mission.

The New Testament church began in Jerusalem, Acts 2, 47, 4, 4 and 6, 1 and 7.

It rapidly spread through Judea and Samaria, and it penetrated the farthest corners of the earth.

If you look, for example, at Colossians chapter 1, verse 27, and I'll encourage you to bring your Bibles to class.

If you look at Colossians 1, you'll find that here in Colossians chapter 1, that by the time we come to approximately 60 A.D., 30 years after the cross, if you look at Colossians 1, verse 27, the Bible says, and through verse 29, to them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of his mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

Now, notice what the Bible says, to this end, to this end I labor.

Katia Reinert

Adventists InStep for Life: Responding to the Obesity Epidemic, Part 1

Well, I'm so glad you have joined us this morning and the next 4 mornings for Advancing Steps for Life.

We're going to be talking about the obesity epidemic and what the church response is been the last year and will be for the next at least 4 years while we are here in this role.

And I think that you will find that this is a huge opportunity for us to engage as a church to really make a difference in our communities.

Before we start, I know she already prayed for us, but I would like to pray again before we begin.

Dear Heavenly Father, we are just so grateful, Lord, for the opportunity to be here at the summit.

We know that many of the people who came did this in great sacrifice financially and times of time because they are committed and feel called to work spreading this message of health, healing, wholeness and spreading the gospel really which is demonstrated by your life.

So at this time as we come together this morning to share the seminar and learn how we can engage our churches, our schools, hospitals in the community through this initiative, I pray a special blessing upon each 1 that's here today.

I ask you to bless each 1 as they continue moving through the week and bring your spirit in a special way so they can feel committed and called to continue this wonderful area of ministry which is health ministries for your honor and glory.

We do this not because of us but because of you.

Well first of all before we get started I want to have an idea of who you are.

And let me do this so I can see your faces there too.

So, and then if you can just tell me if you've heard about Advancing Steps for Life before, or if you're learning about it for the first time now.

And I'm gonna start through the back row here, this gentleman.

Can you tell us your name and where you're from, and if you've heard about this initiative before?

I live from French Guadeloupe, the Caribbean.

Have you heard about this initiative in the Inter-America Division?

Pastor Marcus Bonfim is actually the Health Ministries Director at the South American Division.

Did you hear about this initiative before?

I know Georgia Cumberland Conference has been on this for years.

And I've heard the name, don't know a lot about it.

I'd heard about the initiative before or no?

My name is Eichner Ponderfleck, I also come from Curacao.

I was the director of the conference there.

I didn't, what I did was when I was appointed, is to just go online, And so I saw it.

And we did do something similar in January.

And I've heard about it through the North American Division website.

And I didn't hear about this until young.

Canada, see we have a wonderful diverse group here from different countries.

Diana Fleming

Adventists InStep for Life: Responding to the Obesity Epidemic, Part 2

Diana Fleming, co-author of the Full Plate Diet and the Full Plate Diet Weight Loss Program.

We are going to be doing a facilitator workshop, a training workshop on how you can facilitate the Full Plate Diet Weight Loss Program.

Has anybody heard of the Lifestyle Center of America?

It was a beautiful, large lifestyle facility on 1, 700 acres in rural.

I have your PowerPoint if you want to show it, that picture.

Yeah, because you left it here, remember?

In fact, you have a couple of scriptures.

Anyway, this is a picture of the facility.

And I've been there, this summer it'll be 10 years with this organization.

They ran lifestyle programs starting in 1996 for 12 years.

A beautiful facility in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma.

Mountains is relative to where you live, I've been told.

So anyway, they ran 18-day lifestyle programs, residential programs.

They were expensive, anywhere from $5, 000 to $7, 000, $8, 000.

They had a very dedicated staff of SDA professionals.

Doctors, nurses, fitness trainers, nutrition people.

And they were very highly qualified, and they really all had a vision of helping people stop and reverse their chronic disease.

Over the years, we've started focusing on diabetes because as the obesity epidemic increased, so did the diabetes epidemic.

And you know, Katja just showed you the statistics.

If you're overweight, your relative risk of getting diabetes is 10 times greater than somebody who's not.

Anyway, the doctors provided extensive lab work at the beginning and before the guests left.

All of us had developed these wonderful PowerPoint presentations with the latest research and the references, And we really went out of our way to give them all the information we could.

And when they left, you know, they had a book this thick with all the program materials.

It was a little bit like graduate school, I used to say.

So they had vegan cooking schools where they actually learned how to cook.

You know, everybody knows what the word vegan means?

And then it became low glycemic for diabetics.

They had excellent instruction on how to walk, how to lift weights, you know, they could work in a gym.

They had behavior health counseling and worship.

And I saw a progression in the years I was there.

In the beginning, I wasn't there and most of their clientele were Seventh-day Adventists.

But as the years went on, most of their clientele were non-Adventists, which is actually what they wanted.

You know, they wanted to help the Adventist people, of course, but they were really using this as an outreach to non-Adventists.

Now, when the program was over, most of the people, most of the time, got great results.

They lowered their blood sugar, their insulin, their triglycerides, their cholesterol levels.

And I've been to so many graduation ceremonies and literally cried.

I mean, the things they would say was amazing.

So, we know that residential lifestyle programs run by our people work.

Our results were no different than Weimar and Black Hills and Yuchi Pines and Wildwood.

They all get these amazing results when the people are there.

But what do you think happens when the people go home?

Right, well, so, you know, we asked around who was doing follow-up data and research on their guests, and there wasn't much of that going on.

If you're responsible for running the program, when the program's over, you're exhausted.

You have no time nor energy to find out what's going on with the people.

You know, you're just glad they left so you can rest up for the next group.

So they actually devoted staff to doing follow-up.

Making phone calls 1 month after they were there, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year.

And you know, there was counseling offered, lots of different things.

And I was actually involved in some of the follow-up.

Yeah, Most of the people most of the time were not succeeding.

Now remember, this is mostly non-Adventists.

So it was even more than the 10 days in Daniel.

So what happened to the initially Adventist group that came?

Jesus Methods in the 21st Century, Part 2

Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity to study your Word.

We're excited about the principles that God has given in His Word to help us understand how to grow churches that are active, alive, spiritually vibrant.

So as we continue to study, guide us, we pray in Christ's name.

First session, We talked about the difference between principles and methods.

What's the difference between a principle and a method?

And it is universal in scope and eternal in time.

So if it's going to be a principle, You have to be able to apply it all places, all times.

A method may be successful in 1 place, but it's not necessarily successful in another place.

We're looking at principles from the Book of Acts that enable our churches to rapidly grow for Christ.

And we've identified, as we've gone through the Book of Acts, 5 of those principles.

The first is churches grow when they're spiritually renewed.

The secondly, churches grow when members are equipped and trained for service.

Thirdly, churches grow when there is multifaceted, broad-based outreach.

Fourthly, churches grow when there is intentional reaping.

And fifthly, churches grow when there's nurture.

We spent quite a bit of time on the spiritual foundation.

We looked at the renewal of a prayer life in a local congregation and how that occurs.

We studied the importance of a renewed interest in Bible study and how that renewed interest in Bible study can be manifest, how a leader can initiate renewed Bible study in a congregation.

So revival occurs when there is renewed prayer, renewed Bible study, renewed witness.

As we looked at that, we asked a question.

And the question we asked is, what can I do as a church leader, as a pastor, as an elder, as a conference administrator, to foster spiritual revival in a local congregation?

When I was pastoring, I pastored for a number of years, we often spent a lot of time with our leadership team.

Tini and I would invite them over for Friday nights.

I would like to ask this question, which leaders in my church do I need to share my vision with who can turn this church around?

In every church, there are those 5, 08:10 people that are the leading change agents in the church.

So I'd always ask myself the question, Lord, who is it that I need to share the vision with?

Who is it that I need to broaden the base with?

And so we spent time with our leadership team, praying.

Often we had retreats where we took our people, key church people aside to pray, to think, to vision, to dream what God wanted to do.

We kept asking ourselves the question, how can we provide a spiritual foundation that'll be the foundation of everything else we do?

So revival, Churches grow when they're revived.

Secondly, churches grow when members are equipped and trained to serve.

It's the recognition that each believer has been given gifts by God as a means of Christian witness and developing specific initiatives for each church member to discover and use best their gifts for service and ministry.

When I stand before a congregation, I say to myself, this congregation is the body of Christ.

Every member here has been given some gifts by God.

Series

Track 2 Seminars

Adventists InStep for Life: Responding to the Obesity Epidemic, Part 4

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Adventists InStep for Life: Responding to the Obesity Epidemic, Part 10

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Sound Doctrine