Dr. Palmer, what is the Chesapeake Conference doing in the way of health evangelism?
We usually think of health evangelism in its sense of delivering health-related subjects along with an evangelist in a public effort, or of contributing in the area of public education in such things as Five-Day Plans, weight-control programs, and programs for dietary control of cholesterol. We are doing these things. But in our particular field, we are working on practical methods of bringing the laymen into church service. This is where we think we are moving ahead.
You are also director of the Better Living Team program. Is this emphasis on practical, medical-missionary work by laymen the type of thing this team was organized for?
Yes, it is. You might be interested in how a Better Living program got started in this area.
We had an initial group of twenty-four young people who went from eight States and Canada to the Loma Linda University School of Health in December of 1971.
People in Loma Linda housed and fed us for the six weeks we were there. The School of Health didn't charge any tuition for this pilot project. Dr. John Scharffenberg, a faculty member at the school, carried the major load of seeing this project through during his Christmas holidays. The young people went through a five-week, orientation-type course leading to a certificate in community health programming. They are known as community health programmers, and are able to go into a community and program a health project for the people. Eighteen of them came back to the Chesapeake Conference with me and began a practical demonstration.
Then is the primary purpose of this program to train people to work in connection with the churches; that is, to work in the communities, but through the church?
Yes. We are told to let every church be a training center. And also to let groups be formed, well trained, to go from church to church to teach the people how to cook, how to give simple treatments, to teach them simple anatomy and physiology, and even finance.
What type of work do the Better Living Teams do?
We have several different areas where Better Living Team people are involved. Some operate a Book and Bible House. Others work in a health center. We have a couple running a health-food store. Some are involved in industries at the academy at Highland View, such as a print shop. We're also bringing in an auto mechanics shop at the school, and later on we'll start a health conditioning program there.
Has the fact that the people in this program do not receive a salary contributed to your ability to offer expanded services?
That's correct. All our labor is volunteer, full time, serving the conference structure in whatever area a need arises. Originally we went in with programs such as the Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking, dietary control of cholesterol, and cooking schools.
We found, however, many areas within the conference that were unattended because there was no budget for personnel. For instance, conference personnel were skipping their noon meal and one of the reasons for it was lack of restaurant facilities, since the conference office is out in the country. We have several good cooks in our group, and they decided to cook some meals for the conference committee. When they heard about this the secretaries said, "Can't we have a couple of times a week when we can get a decent lunch?" We went from feeding about fifteen to feeding thirty.
When the time came for the constituency meeting, the conference officials asked, "Could Better Living feed 150 people?" We did, the next Sunday. Next it was 500 at a conference-wide elders and deacons meeting. Finally, we were asked to handle the food service for the camp meeting, and served some 7,500 meals, family-style—no waiting in line—for one dollar a meal.
What other kind of program did you put on at camp meeting?
We ran a conditioning program throughout the camp meeting, starting at five-forty-five in the morning with an exercise program. We were told that maybe two would show up—the instructor and I. We had more than one hundred taking part every morning. With the health-conditioning program, the lectures, and the food service, we had over half of the time of the camp meeting for health emphasis.
Dr. Palmer, what have you learned about how the minister can help church members to be come involved in the type of programs you've been talking about?
Well, when we go into a church with a program, say a cooking school, we attempt to gather the local women into the cooking school program. Instead of coming and putting on a demonstration for them and then leaving town and having them say, "We wish we were cooking experts," we give them a practical part in the program.
When we ran a center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and had cooking classes, we had classwork from eight to ten in the morning. Then those people would go from the classroom into the kitchen and prepare the meal that we served in the cafeteria that noon. They stood at the serving counter and dished out their dishes and listened to the comments of the people going through line and to their comments after eating.
We found that people taught cooking that way came very quickly into service. They may never have had any public experience in cooking before, but within a week or two they were very good cafeteria cooks.
How else do you see lay people being involved?
On page 17 of the book The Ministry of Healing, it says, "Christ came to this world as the unwearied servant of man's necessity. . . . The burden of disease and wretchedness and sin He came to remove. . . . He came to give them health and peace and perfection of character." You will find that Jesus, and all of us, should take away three things: disease, wretchedness (which is another word for stress), and sin. By the grace of God, we are to remove these things from our society.
When we take these things out of society, instead of leaving the house empty for seven devils to move into, we are to bring health of body, mind, and spirit; peace of body, mind, and spirit: and perfection of character of body, mind, and spirit.
Most of us have a religion of ceasing to do evil. Very few of us have an experience of learning to do good. I think we need to learn to bring health as Jesus viewed it and not just deliver people from evil habits.
That's what we're trying to do in the Chesapeake Conference— bring to the people a concept of total health.
