Dragging out the jogging shoes and tossing away the junk food are “givens” in Seventh-day Adventist healthful-living and lifestyle-improvement programs. These crucial elements help people live longer and be healthier. But is this emphasis sometimes too narrow? Michigan Conference health ministries director Vicki Griffin says, “Yes.”
“We live in a postmodern era that evokes such hopelessness that we have to take health work to an entirely new level—one that adds value to people’s lives, one that carefully ministers to the whole person,” Griffin says. “We must create the type of programming, training, and environment that also includes the person who is not going to get better, who has an illness that is not going to resolve, or chronic pain that is not going to go away.
“The most important thing that we want people to take away from our meetings is hope—hope in their habits, hope for their heartaches, hope in their hindrances, and hope for heaven. Just getting better physically is not the ‘big carrot’ anymore.”
Griffin, codeveloper of the Lifestyle Matters Health Intervention Series and editor of Balance magazine and the Balanced Living tract series, is not new to lifestyle-improvement training. Along with addressing such clinical issues as hypertension and diabetes, however, she now recognizes a more pressing need to tackle a stronger mind/body/spirit approach to healthful living. A new program called Fit & free!, developed jointly by Griffin, who holds master’s degrees in nutrition and public administration, and Evelyn Kissinger, a registered dietitian, ministers more specifically to practical strategies for lasting change and whole-person, soul-winning outreach.MEETING ATTENDEES: Michigan Conference health ministries director Vicki Griffin (left) talks with Christine and Tim Yorty following a Fit & free! seminar held in the Lansing, Michgan, church." class="img-right" style="float: right;">
“We want people to know that we’re there not only to help them physically but to let them see that their life has meaning, that God wants to add value to their lives, that it’s not just about lab tests and results,” Griffin explains. “So in this new series we’ve included a very strong motivational piece that examines the building blocks for pushing through obstacles, creating a new sense of resolve and a reason for moving forward. We’ve also built vital biblical truths into the program to create a thirst to know God better.”
The Fit & free! Building Brain and Body Health series was created in 2013 and is currently based on three individual tracts: (1) “Building a Better Brain” (on brain health), (2) “From Wanting to Winning: Best Weight Basics” (on weight management), and (3) “Hearts on Fire: Inflammation and Heart Disease” (on metabolic health). Each tract comprises four segments that cover clinical, lifestyle, motivational, and evangelistic aspects of health. It also comes with fully scripted, professionally designed PowerPoint programs, a tract overview with discussion questions, a session summary, and a participant handout. Health professionals, including neuroscientists, neurologists, and cardiologists, were involved in its development. Promotional materials are also available. Individual presentations or complete tracts can be downloaded from the Internet.*
Editable scripts allow health presenters to translate materials into different languages and edit the content to fit their needs. The scripts are also versatile in that they can be used and presented by both health professionals and laypeople.
“These are evangelistic tools for local churches, and we’ve priced them so that even the small church with limited financial resources can hold an effective program that contains materials that are current, credible, evidence-based, and balanced in their approach,” Griffin says. “We want to teach people how to be balanced and credible health communicators, as well as encouragers and soul winners.”
“Scores of churches have already used this program with very dramatic results,” she adds.
The new lifestyle-improvement program also fits well with the General Conference Health Ministries Department initiative to make every church a center of influence for its community.
“We deeply appreciate well-researched health-promotional resources that conform to the General Conference Working Policy on health resources and institutions,” says Peter Landless, Health Ministries Department director. “These programs are consonant with biblical teaching, reflect the grace-filled Adventist health message as revealed through the writings of Ellen G. White, and are consistent with peer-reviewed, cutting-edge, evidence-based science.
“Vicki Griffin brings both passion and the experience of the healing process that personal loss and pain have brought to her life,” Landless adds. “This passion and experience have informed her compassion and plea for balance in all things, including health.”
Griffin already has numerous stories on record of individuals helped by the Fit & free! program. A wheelchair-bound man in Grand Rapids named Jim, who struggled with severe obesity, experienced a decrease in his fasting blood-sugar level from 300 to 115 within two weeks after making modest diet changes, such as incorporating beans into each meal. Others report increases in energy and better sleep. Some, such as Barb from Michigan, focus on the spiritual emphasis.
“I marvel at the parallels of the human heart and the spiritual heart,” Barb says. “The simplicity of the message makes it easy to remember and to apply to your spiritual life.”
One church congregation held a Fit & free! program just prior to an evangelistic series, and found that several people from the health series attended the evangelistic meetings as well.
Why is the program successful? JoAnn Rachor of the Wyoming Adventist Church in Michigan, who has been involved with Fit & free! in her church, points to its positive approach.
“The emphasis isn’t on what we’re doing wrong and need to stop; instead, the focus is on the good things that we can enjoy and the ideas on how to do more of them,” JoAnn says. “I have found this approach to be encouraging, and it leads to more lasting change.”
Although Fit & free! helps people to improve their health through lifestyle changes to the point where they experience significant weight loss, no longer need blood-pressure medication, or lower their blood-sugar levels, Griffin says it involves much more.
“It’s about hope and courage in the face of trials, the ability to move forward with life’s most important goals in spite of unrelenting problems that are not going to go away,” Griffin says. “We have to learn how to minister to the whole person; otherwise, we’ll experience success for only a few weeks after the program ends.
“And we just cannot have that. It’s unacceptable.”
To learn more about Fit & free! Building Brain and Body Health, go to www.lifestylematters.com, or e-mail Sheri Christie at [email protected].
* www.lifestylematters.com.
