Randy C. Davis, president and executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, led a Bible study each morning at MedAdvance 2023, sponsored by the International Mission Board and hosted by Brentwood Baptist Church, Brentwood. — IMB photo
BRENTWOOD — Doctors, dietitians, nurses, community health workers and more bustled around Brentwood Baptist Church for MedAdvance 2023, a Southern Baptist International Mission Board conference held Aug. 3-5 for believers interested in using healthcare strategies to open doors to a hurting world and gain access to unreached peoples and places in unique ways.
Approximately 300 attendees, including 60 percent who are students, were given opportunities to connect with IMB missionaries serving all over the world, doctors who set up practice in the United States and use their free time to meet medical needs on short-term trips overseas, and nurses from Baptist Nursing Fellowship — an organization committed to missions.
Being a part of God’s work is a privilege, IMB president Paul Chitwood told MedAdvance attendees during his keynote address. IMB healthcare strategy is vital. It’s a way that IMB missionaries obey Christ’s command to love those who need love.
“The physical problems your profession allows you to address are not the only problems,” Chitwood reminded MedAdvance. With all the brokenness in the world, there is only one eternal problem. That’s spiritual lostness, and that’s the world’s greatest problem.
While the IMB doesn’t dismiss other problems in the world, Chitwood reminded all attendees that this greatest problem is personal to everyone.
He told attendees, “It’s our problem as much as it is anyone else’s problem,” and “Once we have experienced the solution, we are called to be a part of the solution.”
Chitwood asked attendees to consider how God is calling them to be part of the solution. Maybe He’s calling them to go short-term or long-term. Maybe He’s calling them to be a mobilizer — to pray and give and send.
Rebecca Naylor, global healthcare strategist for the International Mission Board, addresses participants for the last time at a MedAdvance conference. She is retiring this year after leading every MedAdvance conference since their inception in 2007. — IMB photo
The event also marked the last MedAdvance that Dr. Rebekah Naylor presided over in her role as global healthcare strategist for the IMB. When asked her thoughts, she chuckled, “I’m looking forward to enjoying the next one with no responsibility.”
She’s been leading the conference since its inception in 2007.
She is thankful for its impact, as evidenced by a healthcare volunteer sharing at this conference that his first real moment to realize his role in medical missions was at MedAdvance. The most recent MedAdvance event was the largest in its history.
As Naylor steps out of her role, she’s optimistic about the future of IMB healthcare strategies. “I think it’s going to be bigger and better and more diverse. Even as our world changes, I think our strategies will just multiply.”
Dr. Tom Hicks, a pediatric nephrologist who has served 27 years as a medical missionary in Asia, is assuming the role of Global Healthcare Strategist.
During his time on the field, he and his vascular surgeon wife have gotten the opportunity to put almost every healthcare strategy under the sun to the test.
“I think of IMB healthcare strategies as a snowball. It’s just getting bigger and bigger,” Hicks said. Currently 11 percent of IMB personnel use healthcare strategies in the missionary task.
“Post pandemic, there’s an awareness of the importance of health. As countries close, there’s a great opportunity to use healthcare to meet needs that people can’t deny that they have. We can come in and meet those needs, build relationships, share the gospel with them, and reach lostness,” he said.
Hicks said he doesn’t see any of that changing.
“There are Southern Baptists with healthcare backgrounds, and they’re going to find ways to go. I think that we give an opportunity to partner with them to connect them to places they can go strategically,” he said. B&R
