If you have ever started something from scratch you know it is difficult. This is particularly true when you are trying to do something no one else is doing. You might call it the curse of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are people who don’t just want to start and run their own business. Most of these folks just do not want to work for someone else, but that alone does not make them an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone who sees a problem to be solved or an opportunity to make something new or better. Entrepreneurs tend to be out-of-the-box thinkers; some even call them visionaries. Most of us are familiar with names like Jobs (Apple), Bezos (Amazon), and Gates (Microsoft) but there are countless numbers of other entrepreneurs who decided to invent the future. Think about the products or services that improve your quality of life and how many times you kicked yourself for not inventing something like that yourself.
I believe we are Reformers
Ironically, since Christian Healthcare Centers opened its door in July, a familiar comment is how “visionary” this ministry is; that we are “entrepreneurs” and so forth. I’ve thought a lot about that and I’ve come to a different conclusion. I believe we are reformers, in the best sense of that term. We really are not doing anything that has not been done before. Providing accessible, affordable, Christ-centered medical services is not radically new. The Church was at the forefront of healthcare virtually from its inception. Throughout history, it has been the Church who cared for the sick, started hospitals, trained physicians, etc.
Here in the U. S., there are still large hospital systems that bear the names of church-affiliated medical entities, e.g., Baptist Health, Presbyterian Medical Center, Trinity Health, Methodist Hospital, etc. It is fair to say that there would not be much of a hospital movement in the U.S. if the Church did not occupy a central, culture-shaping role in healthcare.
The Need for Reformation
Somewhere along the way, healthcare wandered away from its roots in the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition. Today, the healthcare establishment has all but abandoned a sanctity of human life ethic, replacing it with a humanistic quality of life focus. The institutionalization of abortion is one example of what to expect from a culture whose medical ethic celebrates individual freedom over moral restraint. Politicians run on “a woman’s right to choose” platform while steadfastly refusing to answer the question, “What are they choosing?” Why? Because the answer is they are choosing death for another human being. In other words, the right to choose is more important than the actual choice itself. When healthcare becomes infected with that kind of logical contradiction, it is time for reform.
Reformation at Christian Healthcare Centers
How does this relate to Christian Healthcare Centers? This healthcare ministry is an extension of a long and distinguished history of care-giving that derives its mission from God’s mission for His Church. It isn’t new and radical. What CHC seeks is a reformation of healthcare that restores its Judeo-Christian foundation; one where the focus is on ethically caring for every patient, including unborn ones, rather than capturing revenue. As healthcare becomes increasingly “secularized,” the moral decay of the broader culture infects healthcare with a set of values that undercut important biblical truths and works against providing quality healthcare for the whole person. Christian Healthcare Centers wants to change that.
Reforming the Healthcare System
To bring about that sort of reform, it is not enough to open a different kind of doctor’s office, which CHC did on July 5, 2017. It requires the creation of a different kind of healthcare system. It means creating not only primary care sites, but leveraging the skills, knowledge and resources of the broader Body of Christ to develop referral networks, ancillary service providers and surgical services whose practitioners are committed to a distinctly Christian approach to the practice of healing and wellness. Christian Healthcare Centers strives to be a catalyst to spark a movement toward the creation of such a system.
I hope you will join us as a fellow reformer by telling the CHC story to family, friends and co-workers, inviting them to join as members. Together we can make a difference!
– Mark Blocher, President & CEO, Christian Healthcare Centers
