Principles & Practice of Health Ministry
Chapter 7
Health Ministry & Spiritual Conversion
In the Seventh-day Adventist church candidates are not baptized until they profess to understand and believe all the Fundamental Beliefs of the church. Sometimes a person is baptized who is not fully exposed to the "health message."
Despite occasional loosening of some criteria for baptism, there are a lot of doctrinal hoops for a person to jump through to become eligible for baptism. This has a way of working against health ministry. For example, if a previously secular person quits smoking with God's help and has a new relationship with Jesus, there is no way for this to be formally recognized by the church. In reality, this person was "converted" or "saved" at a stop smoking clinic. This person found Jesus and their life was turned around. This person’s newfound trust in Christ is not recognized; he is not welcomed into the fellowship of believers or considered a serious candidate for baptism.
In a health ministry program, it is possible to have a conversion experience. Your life is completely turned around when you trust God to make a change in your life. You are far from being doctrinally mature, but the salvational step you took should be recognized in some way by the church. You should be welcomed into the fellowship of the saved.
Divine deliverance from one bad habit creates the possibility that God can do even more for you. God will help you with all of your bad habits. This conversion experience can occur over any single aspect of life that needs changing with the power of God. When you first trust God to save you from a bad habit or addiction, your life is turned around and changed. Once you have experienced the power of God in your life you are interested to learn what else God can do for you. Every therapeutic lifestyle change by faith serves as a real-life object lesson in the power of God to help fallen humans overcome sin of any kind -- physical or moral.
Those who accept Christ to change their lives should be recognized for having been converted, albeit specific to a particular bad habit. If they attribute their victory to Jesus Christ, they can be recognized as baby Christians. They have sipped the milk of the Word. Some act of recognition that this step has taken place needs to be developed.
The best example of this from the Bible is the healing of the demoniac found in Luke 8. Jesus was asked to leave the country by the alarmed population who had lost their livelihood in the drowning of 2000 pigs in the Sea of Galilee. As the restored demoniac entered the boat to depart he begged to join Jesus and the disciples.
This heathen man was healed and wanted to learn more from Jesus, but Jesus told him to “Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.” Luke 8:39
This is health ministry with evangelistic power. The demoniac knew nothing about the sabbath, the sanctuary, or the state of the dead. He had only one message. "I was a slave of demons, but now I am free. I was lost, but now am found. I was dead, but now I am alive. Jesus saves. Jesus saves.”
A health message without Jesus is a message without hope or meaning. It points to the change needing to be made, but fails to provide the power necessary for a permanent change.
If a health ministry program is conducted in an evangelistic way, people will come to Jesus and be converted by trusting Jesus to change their lives. Having one's life changed by Jesus can occur with any problem a person has. For many people, gluttony is a besetting sin from which they need to be liberated. Jesus can do this for them. They can be saved at a health ministry program that proclaims the gospel as the source of power for personal lifestyle change.
The church needs to develop meaningful ways to recognize the conversion experience of an individual who is “saved” through a health ministry program. Doctrinal maturity can be achieved over time with additional study.
Health reform and salvation are closely connected. It is a mistake to educate and inform people about health and expect them to make lasting changes in their behavior through their own willpower. Everyone may experience some success regarding some behaviors, but everyone also has some behaviors over which they are powerless. No one can truly change -- experience a heart and mind change -- unless they develop a dependent relationship on Jesus Christ.
Health reform is not to be considered just a salvation from disease or symptoms, but salvation from slavery to the habits that trap us in unhealthful behaviors, which are a type of sin. This kind of salvation -- liberation from certain sins -- only comes from Jesus. We tend to limit our concept of health reform to the physical or mental arena of life and place the salvation experience into a mystical spiritual arena. But Jesus is needed in all facets of life. Health ministry needs to be fully infused with the gospel of Christ.
Health ministry is a stepping stone to this wonderful truth, in that the sick and suffering can be healed and comforted through the power of God in personal therapeutic lifestyle change by faith.
The primary purpose of health ministry is to introduce people to Jesus in the context of a current life issue that is desperately important to every human being, Christian or not, personal health.
Some health ministry leaders feel that health information presented to the public should be more of a scientific nature and not so much from the Bible. A main point of this course is that the Bible should be used much more in health ministry programs. If lessons from the Bible are not used in your health program it really isn’t a health ministry program.
Health ministry is all about the gospel. Jesus saves people from bad habits, from the slavery of addiction, from sin, and from self.
Despite occasional loosening of some criteria for baptism, there are a lot of doctrinal hoops for a person to jump through to become eligible for baptism. This has a way of working against health ministry. For example, if a previously secular person quits smoking with God's help and has a new relationship with Jesus, there is no way for this to be formally recognized by the church. In reality, this person was "converted" or "saved" at a stop smoking clinic. This person found Jesus and their life was turned around. This person’s newfound trust in Christ is not recognized; he is not welcomed into the fellowship of believers or considered a serious candidate for baptism.
In a health ministry program, it is possible to have a conversion experience. Your life is completely turned around when you trust God to make a change in your life. You are far from being doctrinally mature, but the salvational step you took should be recognized in some way by the church. You should be welcomed into the fellowship of the saved.
Divine deliverance from one bad habit creates the possibility that God can do even more for you. God will help you with all of your bad habits. This conversion experience can occur over any single aspect of life that needs changing with the power of God. When you first trust God to save you from a bad habit or addiction, your life is turned around and changed. Once you have experienced the power of God in your life you are interested to learn what else God can do for you. Every therapeutic lifestyle change by faith serves as a real-life object lesson in the power of God to help fallen humans overcome sin of any kind -- physical or moral.
Those who accept Christ to change their lives should be recognized for having been converted, albeit specific to a particular bad habit. If they attribute their victory to Jesus Christ, they can be recognized as baby Christians. They have sipped the milk of the Word. Some act of recognition that this step has taken place needs to be developed.
The best example of this from the Bible is the healing of the demoniac found in Luke 8. Jesus was asked to leave the country by the alarmed population who had lost their livelihood in the drowning of 2000 pigs in the Sea of Galilee. As the restored demoniac entered the boat to depart he begged to join Jesus and the disciples.
This heathen man was healed and wanted to learn more from Jesus, but Jesus told him to “Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.” Luke 8:39
This is health ministry with evangelistic power. The demoniac knew nothing about the sabbath, the sanctuary, or the state of the dead. He had only one message. "I was a slave of demons, but now I am free. I was lost, but now am found. I was dead, but now I am alive. Jesus saves. Jesus saves.”
A health message without Jesus is a message without hope or meaning. It points to the change needing to be made, but fails to provide the power necessary for a permanent change.
If a health ministry program is conducted in an evangelistic way, people will come to Jesus and be converted by trusting Jesus to change their lives. Having one's life changed by Jesus can occur with any problem a person has. For many people, gluttony is a besetting sin from which they need to be liberated. Jesus can do this for them. They can be saved at a health ministry program that proclaims the gospel as the source of power for personal lifestyle change.
The church needs to develop meaningful ways to recognize the conversion experience of an individual who is “saved” through a health ministry program. Doctrinal maturity can be achieved over time with additional study.
Health reform and salvation are closely connected. It is a mistake to educate and inform people about health and expect them to make lasting changes in their behavior through their own willpower. Everyone may experience some success regarding some behaviors, but everyone also has some behaviors over which they are powerless. No one can truly change -- experience a heart and mind change -- unless they develop a dependent relationship on Jesus Christ.
- “The light God has given on health reform is for our salvation and the salvation of the world ... Let the poor have the gospel of health preached unto them from a practical point of view.” Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods 193
Health reform is not to be considered just a salvation from disease or symptoms, but salvation from slavery to the habits that trap us in unhealthful behaviors, which are a type of sin. This kind of salvation -- liberation from certain sins -- only comes from Jesus. We tend to limit our concept of health reform to the physical or mental arena of life and place the salvation experience into a mystical spiritual arena. But Jesus is needed in all facets of life. Health ministry needs to be fully infused with the gospel of Christ.
- "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth... For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Health ministry is a stepping stone to this wonderful truth, in that the sick and suffering can be healed and comforted through the power of God in personal therapeutic lifestyle change by faith.
- “The gospel is to be bound up with the principles of true health reform. The gospel and the medical missionary work are to advance together. Christianity is to be brought into the practical life.” Vol. 6 Testimonies 379
The primary purpose of health ministry is to introduce people to Jesus in the context of a current life issue that is desperately important to every human being, Christian or not, personal health.
- “We should ever remember that the object of the medical missionary work is to point sin-sick men and women to the Man of Calvary, who takes away the sin of the world (and the diseases that go with it). By beholding Him, they will be changed into His likeness. We are to encourage the sick and suffering to look to Jesus and live”. Counsels on Diet and Food 458
Some health ministry leaders feel that health information presented to the public should be more of a scientific nature and not so much from the Bible. A main point of this course is that the Bible should be used much more in health ministry programs. If lessons from the Bible are not used in your health program it really isn’t a health ministry program.
- “The principles of health reform are found in the Word of God. The gospel of health is to be firmly linked with the ministry of the Word. It is the Lord’s design that the restoring influence of health reform shall be a part of the last great effort to proclaim the gospel message.” Medical Ministry 259
Health ministry is all about the gospel. Jesus saves people from bad habits, from the slavery of addiction, from sin, and from self.