Primary Care

Ben Williams pursued a medical career in hopes of reaching patients for Christ. But two years of mounting disillusionment were enough to make the crestfallen college student toss aside his application to medical school.

"The doctors I was working with were bitter about their profession and jerks to their patients," says the University of Arizona senior. "Medicine became disgusting to me. I no longer thought it was possible to evangelize in that field."

It wasn't until Ben, also a Campus Crusade leader at his school, started volunteering at an inner-city clinic that his discouragement melted away.

The Neighborhood Christian Clinic helps the needy population in downtown Phoenix, but it was designed to disciple doctors. Supported by philanthropists, the clinic allows underprivileged patients to receive full treatment (including labs and medication) for about $50-$60 a visit. But Dr. Dave Tellez, a critical-care physician and director at Phoenix Children's Hospital, started the clinic as a means to teach medical practitioners how to make their workplace their mission field.

Dr. Tellez learned some simple techniques at a 1989 conference hosted by the Medical Strategic Network, a Campus Crusade ministry that trains health-care professionals to reach their patients for Christ. Afterward, Dr. Tellez started to evangelize in his practice, helping lead patients, co-workers and even entire families to Christ.

Wanting to apply everything he learned from the conference about evangelism and discipleship, Dr. Tellez felt that God was telling him to open an inner-city clinic for the working poor and simultaneously show his co-workers how to pray with patients and discuss spiritual truth.

Since the clinic opened its doors in an abandoned downtown apartment house in 1999, it's grown into a new, 5,500 square-foot building, complete with a dental and chiropractic program.

On the inside, the clinic is a model of how to address the holistic needs of patients, which include their emotional and spiritual well-being. "There's true healing in that place," Ben says. "I can feel it every time I walk in there."

Despite tremendous growth, Dr. Tellez is careful to preserve his original vision. "We're not here to see how many patients we can see," he emphasizes. "Our goal isn't to see 10,000 people in 10 years; it's more to make 10 disciples in 10 years.

"There are wonderful stories about patients' lives being changed, and that's incredibly exciting," says Dr. Tellez. "But when you see a doctor's life change, you know that means that hundreds of more patients' lives will be changed because of that doctor."

Paul Lorentsen is one of those doctors. While his original passion for medicine was founded in social justice and helping the poor, his vision grew when he encountered Dr. Tellez. Dr. Lorentsen now directs the clinic and serves as the best example of blending the two visions of serving the poor and training doctors to evangelize.

"Taking a spiritual history is a very natural thing that we try to teach the volunteers," says Dr. Lorentsen. The clinic is a safe place for doctors to initiate spiritual conversations, and quite often the patients bring the subject up themselves.

Dr. Lorentsen and Dr. Tellez are also happy to see young volunteers like Ben latch on to their vision. "If it is successful, it will duplicate itself through the people that volunteer there and there will be other clinics like this across the country," says Dr. Tellez.

After witnessing how doctors in the Neighborhood Christian Clinic successfully and easily evangelize in their field, Ben is reapplying to medical school. His passion to help patients see God's love was rekindled by seeing physicians learn how to apply God's love.