Transform Healthcare

Faith, hope and transformation

“We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thess 1:3

Last Sunday I heard a pastor say that, “Transformation always starts with hope! You have to believe that God can actually do something!”

Hope and faith are interdependent as the Word of God declares, “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 1:1 NIV

The Message translation says, “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.” Heb 11:1-2

I went on to read again the acts of faith of our ancestors and found that I was lost in amazement at all that they had done in faith and yet, “Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.” Hebrews 11:39-40 Message.

It seems that God is saying that their faith would influence us to greater acts of faith. Jesus said that we would do even greater works than His. He is also saying that we together with the heroes and heroines of faith constitute His Body – “one completed whole”. We are not to be independent of one another but to stand in unity, corporately.

It is this thought, our need to stand together in unity that has inspired the Global Prayer Summits for Health Care that were held in the last few years. The next one is 18-22 October in South Africa and Ken and I will be attending it.

In Australia the drought is bringing us to our knees. There was rain after the National Solemn Assembly in March but we need so much more. Australia is in need of rain both physically and spiritually. The land is crying out and in health care, we hear it clearly.

Just today, a woman was in intense pain for 2 hours in the waiting room of a Sydney hospital and miscarried before she was seen by staff. Her husband said that he will never forget the anguish on the face of his wife as she held their child. It was not still born. We can’t ignore their cries.

I can imagine that the staff members were so pressed that they could not respond in time. There is a drought in health care – there is either not enough staff or facilities or there is confusion and chaos in the management of them. In another headline today, the Minister for Health in NSW was being called to account for inefficiencies at this hospital. We need to rise in faith and hope and cry out to the Lord.

In the midst of it, The Global Prayer Summit for Health Care will be held in South Africa 18-22 October. Also Healthcare Sunday falls on 21st October. This is an initiative that began in the UK and is spreading around the world as a day to pray for health care and health care workers.  http://www.healthcaresunday.org.uk

God is calling us to pray corporately to see Godly outcomes in the many crises in our nation and in health care that will glorify the Lord and further His Kingdom. We would encourage you to join in the National Synergy of Prayer in Australia and to join us in praying for rain for global health care as well, especially from 18-22 October. It would be wonderful if you could pray with others at your workplace or in your church. Let us join our faith together and believe that God will break the drought and send rain both physically and spiritually.

Ken and Ros Curry

Health Care in Christ

Transformation of healthcare is our mandate

“God blessed them & said to them, be fruitful, multiply, & fill the earth, & subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God & man]; & have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, & over every living creature that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1:38 AMP

Ken and Ros Curry of Health Care in Christ report:

During the past months the Lord has spoken very clearly that we are to press in & continue looking to Him for the transformation of health care.

Our western worldview struggles with the concept of transformation because we don’t rightly discern the Kingdom of God in our midst & we have put aside the creation mandate to fill all things & subdue it. Health care is positioned in the spheres of creation in an amazing way as it is founded on the healing work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The city of health care is an integral part of His Kingdom & we need to work towards affirming & reinstating His Lordship to see Him glorified in & through it.

What happens in transformation is up to Him as He is Lord. We don’t really know what to expect but we may see many saved & healed; we may receive amazing revelation about the prevention & treatment of disease & see the dead raised to life. Miracles of healing are occurring now although they are usually not acknowledged as such.

Although we are not yet seeing transformation, Godly change is occurring in health care. Ken’s article in this newsletter documents the growing acceptance of the relevance of spirituality in health care, which is evidence of this. Ever since the enlightenment when science & spirituality were divorced from one another, there has been a coldness in health care to spiritual things. From the 70’s on, we saw the new age have increasing influence in health care but the door remained closed to Christianity. However, there is now a growing awareness of the benefits of looking at spiritual aspects for our patients & the clinician. It is opening the door for us to discuss spiritual things with our patients.

The term, spirituality, is often looked at with suspicion by many Christians. The ABC program, Compass, recently had 2 programs on faith-to-faith dialogue, which promotes acceptance & incorporation of other forms of religion. This universalistic approach that all roads lead to god is gaining acceptance in some parts of the church & reminds me that even the elect will be lured away in the times that we are living in.

However, acceptance of the relevance of spirituality in health care is something that we have been looking & praying for. It allows us to discuss spiritual things with our patients from an evidence based platform. It is an open door for Biblical health care.

God is also leading clinicians to adopt Biblical principles in their practice & workplace. Chris Hayes has been applying principles of Biblical health care to the management of chronic pain. His article is a discussion of his contribution to the Shalom conference at Vellore.

The Lord reminded us recently that this new ‘door’ is only influencing health care in the western world. Nations that have a non-western worldview, which is closer to a Biblical worldview, already enjoy an ‘open door’. A friend from PNG told us of the church that he has established in his ward. He preaches every Monday morning & leads many of his patients to Christ. He says that the environment in the ward is different to other wards & they experience fewer untimely deaths. They are very aware of the spiritual warfare in their workplaces & that God is at work in their midst.

Let us continue to pray that His name will be exalted & His power released in the health systems of our nation & the world.

“Seek the peace & prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” Jer 29:7

Ken and Ros Curry

Religious Commitment and Health Status

It is very encouraging that PRIME has a growing family of friends in many countries. I have just returned home from Romania where once again we met many students and doctors from all over the country who share our belief in the high value of the dignity of our patients and wish to encourage this spirit in the middle of medical teaching and practice.

If any of you have sadly been ill yourself and had to ask for a doctor's help you will have experienced the value of such "spiritual care" as a really important partner to the academic and surgical skills of your colleague

We tend to call this "spiritual” care - it is slightly confusing to use this word which can be used also in the context of religious belief. It refers to the awareness of the deep personality of the patient, the story or "narrative" of his life which thus gives unique significance to this particular illness.  So the same medical facts can be manifest totally differently in different people and have to be cared for and managed differently.

Many of our patients have deep religious faith which determines their "narrative".  You might be very interested to look up a fascinating article that shows how much we can improve a person's physical health and healing if we as doctors take full account of their personal faith. Please read the following excellent article:

http://archfami.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/7/2/118

With very good wishes to you

Dr John Caroe

PRIME Chairman

On behalf of PRIME – Partnerships in International Medical Education

HCiC Report Shalom Conference

The Shalom Conference at CMC Vellore, India renewed our vision for and commitment to the transformation of health care. We discovered that God is putting Biblical Health Care on the hearts of Christians around the world. It is His work to bring redemption and transformation and we are privileged to be a part of it.

We seem to have been plodding along for a long time wondering whether God is in all that we do. However, in the last few years as we have been exploring and seeking out what Biblical Health Care is, we have sensed His guiding and leading in a new way. It is a new path and one that we haven’t travelled before but we now find that we have lots of company on the journey.

“I [the Lord] will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.

Be not like the horse or the mule, which lack understanding, which must have their mouths held firm with bit and bridle, or else they will not come with you.” Ps 32:8-9 (Amp)

The Lord gave me this scripture many years ago as I meditated on a rocky hillside in Fiji in the middle of a sugar cane plantation. Below me at the bottom of the hill, I saw a mule tethered to a rock. As I looked, a man came out of a small hut and approached the mule, which immediately turned its back on him. The man was not perturbed even after the mule repeatedly stamped his hooves and turned his back on him. After gently and calmly stroking the animal for sometime, he eventually managed to quietly lean down and remove the rope from the rock. He then proceeded to lead the animal up the slippery, shaly hillside taking particular care that the animal didn’t loose its footing. I had never seen such loving care and concern as he showed to this mangy looking animal.

As he came up the hill towards me, I was amazed– it was no longer mangy but sleek and healthy; it was actually a rather handsome horse. The transformation was amazing and as I sat there the Lord dropped those verses into my mind. I was preoccupied with my thoughts and didn’t see where he disappeared to. However, a few days later as I walked into Nadi, I saw him in the distance on a barren hillside in the only patch of green anywhere in the vicinity. Even away in the distance, I could see a fine horse – he wasn’t a mule any more!

At the time, I was on a short term mission trip after a term at Faith Bible College in New Zealand. I was looking to the Lord about my future and this experience impacted me greatly. It was a tremendous encouragement. From time to time, the Lord has brought me back to these scriptures and now as we are looking to the Lord for the way forward with Biblical Health Care, I again find them both encouraging and challenging.

Bill Johnson in his book, “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind” (page 82), said that we define understanding as “nothing more than cognitive reasoning, coming to conclusions, fully comprehending.” However, he says that from a Biblical worldview, “understanding is an experience. It means engaging in activities that involve our five senses…it means to practice in real life what one has come to know by revelation.”

This makes sense to me, as God has been revealing His heart for Biblical Health Care, we have been looking to transcribe this into clinical practice. We have come thus far but are so aware that God has a great deal more to reveal. It will take the dedication and commitment of all of those working on this around the world and the generations who follow to fully put this into practice and see health care transformed. It is daunting and only possible because God is in it.

I am reminded of the Israelites standing at the edge of the Red Sea, with the Egyptians closing in on them and no obvious escape route. God knew the way that they were to go (Ps 77:19), but they were oblivious to it until God made the way through the sea. At the Global Prayer Summit in Jerusalem in 2005, we prophetically walked through the sea to the Promised Land as the leaders stood on either side symbolizing the waters being held back.

Chris Steyn said that we would meet giants in the land but we needed to enter in. Just as the Israelites couldn’t have gone back because the Egyptians were there, we had no other way to go but forward because God has shown us that His plan is for Biblical Health Care, to bring back His Lordship and presence into health care.

Bill Johnson continues (Page 82-3), “To understand also means yielding to something before you can explain, define or describe it... A normal Christian is one who obeys the revelations and promptings of the Holy Spirit without understanding. Understanding usually unfolds in the experience.”

That passage gave me understanding as I have marveled at the commitment we feel to Biblical Health Care even though we struggle to “explain, define or describe it”! We have crossed through the sea or climbed the slippery, shaly hillside but haven’t as yet begun to take the Promised Land or reach the grassy field. However, we have sensed that God is already transforming us on the journey.

The way forward has to be on our knees in prayer. If we pray, God will facilitate our journey – there is no other way – we can’t proceed without Him. We need to pray specifically that God will impart His vision and calling to the next generation.

At Shalom there was a call for a commitment to prayer globally. Dr George Chandy (CEO of CMC in Vellore, India) called health workers to pray each day at the same time around the world (EST in Australia is 8.30pm for QLD, NSW, Victoria; 8.00 pm in SA & 6.30pm in the WA).

We are also linking with VO Cherian from HCF India who has been challenged by the Lord to begin a Global Prayer Network to see Biblical Health Care birthed. It is now possible to gather across the world in prayer online and it is time to do so. Please contact the HCIC office for information.

We intend to begin workshops on Biblical Health Care and will let you know when we are ready to do so. This newsletter contains reports of the conference at Shalom and we will continue to publish some of the proceedings in subsequent newsletters.

“David said, ‘What have I done now? Is there not a cause?’” 1 Samuel 17:29

Arul Anketell in his welcome letter to the Shalom conference quoted,

Arul wrote, “Today the health fields have been infiltrated by a humanistic worldview. While we thank God for all the amazing advances in health care, we also lament the erosion of Biblical values and truths in health care. Millions of patients pass through our health care institutions. They need wholeness and Shalom that only Jesus Christ can give. Yet very few are genuine dispensers of this truth. Can we rise up like David with these words? Is there not a cause?”

Ros Curry

Health Care in Christ

The fullness of Christ and transformation in healthcare

Fullness is being full, that is holding all within its limits with no emptiness (for example a container), abundance, completeness.  "The fullness of Christ."  What does this phrase mean?  How does it affect healthcare?

Let us see something of what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us in the Bible.  He delights to honour and glorify Jesus.  He takes what belongs to Jesus and reveals it to us.

In Colossians 1:19, we read that "it has pleased [the Father] that all the divine fullness – the sum total of the divine perfection, powers and attributes – should dwell in Him permanently." *  This is true of no other man.   No wonder that in the previous verse (18), we are told that He is the Head of His body, the church, and He alone in everything and in every respect occupies the chief place, standing first and pre-eminent.  "In everything" includes our lives and our work. Recognition of this in practice would transform healthcare!    The next verse (20) reminds us of the central message we are to bring to healthcare, reconciliation to God and peace through the blood of His cross.

In Colossians 2:9, we read that "...in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead), continues to dwell in bodily form – giving complete expression of the divine nature."  "In bodily form" – a man, yet fully God, who could say "before Abraham was born, I AM."  This is true of no other man.  Amazingly, the very next statement is "And you are in Him, made full and have come to fullness of life – in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and reach full spiritual stature.  And He is the Head of all rule and authority – of every angelic principality and power."  Those who are born-again believers are in Christ, are made full in Him, are complete in Him and have abundance.  The fullness of Christ means that we have need of nothing else for life and work!  Fullness means fullness - no empty parts, nothing lacking!  I have never forgotten Joni Eareckson Tada's closing remark to us at a HCF international conference - "all you need is Jesus."  And, for that which is outside of us, in the spiritual realm, He is the Head of all rule and authority – every angelic principality and power.  He will send us angelic help when needed and will protect us from spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly sphere.

In Ephesians 1:22,23, we read that "He (God) has put all things under His (Christ's) feet and has appointed Him the universal and supreme Head of the church...which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all – for in that body lives the full measure of Him who makes everything complete, and who fills everything everywhere [with Himself]."   Born-again believer in Jesus, no matter where you are working, in a sophisticated modern hospital or in the most obscure poor part of the health field, or facing hostility wherever you are, Jesus is there, for He fills everything everywhere.

In John 1: 14 we read "And the Word [Christ] became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled – fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile – among us; and we [actually] saw His glory  His honor, His majesty; such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving kindness) and truth.  And in verse 16, we read "...out of His fullness (abundance) we all received."  He is full of grace and truth and our lives and our work should therefore be characterized by grace and truth.  Both, not one without the other!  But who is sufficient for these things in this present, pressured world of healthcare?  Let's read the rest of verse 16, " – all had a share and we were all supplied with – one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift."  Our sufficiency is of Him.  We have received grace from Him, free, full, infinite, never-ending. 

                            His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,

                            His power no boundary known unto men;

                            For out of His infinite riches in Jesus

                            He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.   

                                                                                          Annie J. Flint

As we act on His grace received, we receive more and more from His fullness.  Our lives come more and more in line with the reality of the fullness we have received in Christ.  The grace we receive from Him changes us into the same image.  As Chris Steyn has written, “healthcare transformation begins on the inside.”

May Ephesians 3:16-19 be our prayer for each other in healthcare and the prayer of those who are our faithful intercessors.  "May [the Father] grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the (Holy) Spirit [Himself] – indwelling your innermost being and personality.  May Christ through your faith [actually] make His permanent home – in your hearts!  May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, that you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints (God's devoted people, the experience of that love) what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [that you may really come] to know – practically, through experience for yourselves – the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge (without experience); that you may be filled (through all your being) unto all the fullness of God – [that is] may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself!

Yours in His amazing grace,

George McDonald

HCFI President

Healthcare Transformation and our view of human beings

Our view of human beings shapes our entire understanding of what healthcare transformation is all about. As a Christian I am deeply interested in developing a biblically sound insight into human beings and what our deepest needs are. Networking activities with like-minded leaders have led to inspiring interactions and adjustments of our views.

In the first quarter of 2007 representatives from Health Care in Christ, International Health Services and Healthcare Christian Fellowship met in Vellore India to share and interact with one another about what the Lord has been showing each of us about Biblical Christian Healthcare over the past years. What a tremendously enriching experience this has been. We were amazed and blessed to discover that the Lord has given us convictions that both overlap and complement one another. Each of us has lots of new thoughts, concepts and material to integrate into our own teaching materials as a consequence.  What I did with what I learnt, will soon be found in a PowerPoint presentation on our downloads page www.hcfi.givengain.org 

The input of the Health Care in Christ family will soon be found at http://www.hcic.org.au and from International Health services it will be at http://www.internationalhealthservices.org/ 

It is worth the effort to check it out.

One of the participants was Chris Hayes. They have made a practical selection of important elements to consider when practicing whole person healthcare in a pain treatment service. More information about their work can be found at http://www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/pain 

Healthcare Transformation begins on the inside

Since the iron curtain came down, healthcare services in Central and Eastern Europe have been in great turmoil. In some countries, the healthcare system has undergone four major changes in the past 15 years. The policy makers have greatly underestimated the amount of stress which each change process has caused. They made another serious error – they thought that outward changes in the system would be adequate.

It is no use changing the system if the people in the system are not changed either. It is far more important to change the people in the system than to change the system.  For example, corrupt people in an outdated system will remain corrupt also in a revised one.

Now the question arises: what is the best way to change people in a healthcare system? By sending directives from the ministry of health? By introducing new laws? By appointing a new minister of health? By making a new five year plan? By introducing quality management and ISO standards?

All of the elements mentioned above are necessary and helpful, but they cannot do what needs to happen first – changing the hearts of those working in healthcare.

How do you change human hearts? The answer is profoundly simple and simply profound: Jesus Christ.

Some people will be tempted to go into anaphylactic shock at my proposal. Others will write me off as crazy and out of touch with the real world. But before you react too hastily, please hear me out.

Let me ask you a question first: Do you have a better answer to the deepest needs of healthcare workers? Where do you propose that they go to receive inner strength to cope with all the changes that are necessary and with the draining impact of working with sick and dying people every day? Do you really have a better answer than Jesus Christ has? Have you made an in depth exploration of who He is and what He has to offer?

For more than thirty years I have been struggling with these questions. Each time I came to the place of acknowledging: Jesus Christ knows better than I do what healthcare workers need and He can do for them what they cannot do and what nobody else can do.

What does this mean in practice? He begins a change process in the inside of people. This results first of all in changing people working in the same system. These inwardly changing people do not become better than others; they become different people – step by step they are transformed into becoming more like Him. As they are inwardly changed, they become involved in change processes at various levels. First of all, they change in a positive way in their relationships with colleagues and patients. Next, they change in the way in which they are doing their work; seeking to raise their level of professionalism. At the same time their interest turns towards change processes on an institutional level. How can we transform our healthcare institution into a place of even greater blessing to those who suffer? And ultimately, they become concerned about the transformation of healthcare systems.

Jesus Christ introduces an approach for the transformation of healthcare systems that works from the inside outwards. Policy makers think their approach which works from the outside inwards is better.

Take a look at what is happening in healthcare in your country. Can you honestly state that the approach of the policy makers is a better one?