Missional medicine: Restoring the soul of health care

Part 1 of 2

Modern health care has a mission problem.

Medicine is supposed to be about the patient—not the payment, the doctor, a hospital, insurance companies, or government bureaucracy. It is not about the latest gadgetry in the medical arsenal, the newest drugs, or the latest therapy. It is the patient that matters most.

However, modern medicine seems to have lost its way.

The result is that many doctors, including Christian doctors, want to find a way back to a model of medical practice more aligned with the values and motives that led them to pursue a medical career in the first place. We encourage Christian doctors to make medicine missional again, and for the Church—the Body of Christ—to return to its historical and strategic place in the vanguard of health care, because the practice of medicine and true caring for the sick suffers without it.

Fortunately, a growing movement in health care seeks to restore medicine’s mission: direct primary care.

Direct primary care is a model of health care delivery that restores the doctor-patient relationship, which leads to happier doctors and healthier patients. When this simple practice model is guided by a Biblical worldview, where medical practice is treated as ministry, the benefit for doctors and patients is immense. The doctors I interact with want to be part of a medical movement that integrates caring for the sick with Christ’s mission for the world, where patient care is a natural outgrowth of their faith.