Church With A Clinic In It (Gone Wrong)

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Why Mission Alignment Matters: A Wake-Up Call for SDA Health Ministry

Several years ago, in searching for ways to increase interaction between pastors and physicians, my pastoral partner and I began exploring the idea of placing a clinic inside a local SDA church. We believed that shared space would deepen collaboration and create mutually beneficial opportunities to advance evangelistic duties. As part of our research, I sought out other examples of church-based clinics, aiming to learn from existing models.

Eventually, I heard about a church clinic in one of the southern states. Encouraged, I looked up the local SDA pastor and gave him a call. I was excited—this was the only example I could find of a fully operational SDA clinic within a church in the entire country.

I introduced myself as a fellow SDA physician working with all-Adventist staff, including medical missionaries. I explained how we actively supported the local conference’s evangelistic mission by engaging our surrounding community. I was hoping the pastor would be a kindred spirit and offer insights from his own experience.

But his response shocked me.

He said he wished he did not have the clinic in his church.

He told me it was one of the worst decisions they had made.

When I asked him why, he said that the idea was inherently a good one, and the church was wholeheartedly behind the concept. Yet, despite the church’s allocation of sufficient space and its sacrificial provision of financial resources for a fully functional clinic, the church and the surrounding Adventist community lacked sufficient SDA staff to operate it. To keep the clinic running, they hired non-Adventist workers. That decision, he said, fundamentally undermined the church’s purpose for building the clinic and made the clinic ineffective for evangelistic benefit to the church.

The non-Adventist staff lacked the conviction and urgency of the Three Angels’ Messages. When the pastor tried to reinforce the church’s evangelistic identity through literature and outreach materials, he faced pushback. The employees of the clinic who were not Adventist began posting denominational literature and evangelistic announcements from non-SDA churches in the SDA church clinic. When the pastor objected and removed their materials, they insisted that the clinic was a community clinic—not an SDA ministry—and claimed equal rights to display their content.

Eventually, in frustration, the pastor removed all literature—his and theirs. Though the clinic remained in the building, it no longer aligned with the church’s mission. The pastor felt that valuable church real estate and resources were being used without any effect in advancing the gospel or the Three Angels’ Messages. He concluded, with emphasis, “I wish it had never happened.”

He then asked me about my clinic. I explained that it also operated in a church building, but with fully SDA medical missionary staff and that we worked directly with the pastor on evangelistic duties. Now it was his turn to be surprised. He acknowledged, “It would’ve been nice if our clinic had been like that.”

Lessons to Learn

There are key lessons for anyone pursuing this model of a church with a clinic in it:

• Do not be unequally yoked. Ministry partnerships with individuals or organizations that don’t share your spiritual mission will always cause mission drift from the gospel. We will be tempted to make mistakes in this area if our primary objective is to build a big program that other churches admire, or if we are concerned about bolstering our reputation through the project.  Being unequally yoked will tend to cause mission drift, if not completely derail the mission.  One wise person once told me that if individuals who do not share the same vision, mission, and willingness to sacrifice become your partners and confidants in ministry, they will offer advice that may take you in a direction you are not prepared to resist.
• A successful clinic requires sacrifice. The sacrifice is NOT just in building the clinic. The sacrifice is NOT just in the physician willing to work on a pastor’s wage, or the pastor who is willing to invest time in the evangelistic opportunities afforded by the clinic. The sacrifice must be continuous in the unified working together of the clinic, the church, and the local Adventist community. The pastor, physician, and church body must all commit to staffing and supporting the evangelistic work from within.
• Scale matters. The clinic must be small enough to match available resources, and it must be sustainable from within the Adventist network of support and staffing.

Being unequally yoked in the development or in the staffing of an evangelistic Medical Missionary clinic is how to place a clinic inside a church the wrong way.

For those serious about this model, take heed: pursue the work, but do so wisely, with foresight, shared commitment, and full alignment in mission and message.

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