Adventist Health Executives Lead with a Heart for Mission

More than 120 Adventist Health executives recently gathered at Adventist Health headquarters in Roseville, California, United States, to immerse in conversation about the organizational mission: Living God’s love by inspiring health, wholeness, and hope.

The theme of the event, Jesus the Great Physician: Five Clinical Outcomes, focused on the healing work of Jesus as the foundation of the Adventist Health mission. Throughout the day, executives explored five outcomes of Jesus’ work—people are healed, bodies are valued, souls are loved, community is restored, and hope is promised—as well as practical applications of these outcomes in the contemporary health care context.

The event was part of the Executive Mission Formation program at Adventist Health, which provides training to ground every executive in ownership of the organization’s mission and to focus on mission as the foundation of decision-making. Throughout the day, executives participated in lively discussions on topics such as health care without bias, the hospital as sanctuary, the challenges of caring for physical bodies and hope that is grounded in reality.

“Mission is not an excuse to just have good intentions and not be brilliant,” Alex Bryan, chief mission officer for Adventist Health, said. “The bedrock of our ministry, if we are to honor Jesus, has to be competency—doing great work.” Bryan spoke for the event on the subject of Jesus healing the sick and injured and, in that process, revealing that God is good.

Event speakers also included Lisa Clark Diller, Southern Adventist University professor of history; Tim Gillespie, Crosswalk Redlands lead pastor; Timothy Golden, Walla Walla University professor of philosophy; and Karl Haffner, Loma Linda University vice president for student experience.

During his opening comments at Operations Council meetings, Todd Hofheins, Adventist Health chief operations officer, said, “Our Executive Mission Formation meetings yesterday have prepared us for today. We have several essential systemwide and market strategies to process. This will only be possible if we keep the honesty, authenticity, and courage from yesterday in our operations.”

Joyce Newmyer, chief people officer and president of Adventist Health’s Pacific Northwest Network, summarized the importance of mission-focused work. “What if we all began every day as brokers of hope? What if everyone in our workplace understood that?” she asked, before answering, “This would be game changing. We’ve only just touched the surface of how this approach can change health care.”

The original version of this story was posted on North Pacific Union Conference Gleaner.