Sharing the Fragrance and Flavour of our Saviour

Posted Dec 09, 2024

Sharing the Fragrance and Flavour of our Saviour: The Saline Process and Pointing Thirsty Sheep to the Living Water

Alvin Loh

This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of FOCUS.

Dr. Loh recently returned from the Saline Process Witness Training program. Dr. Loh shares his thoughts and reflection on the experience below.

Although there are probably far  too many allusions to different scriptures in the title (2 Cor 2:15-17, Psalm 34:8, Matthew 5:13-16, 2 Cor 5:18, Matt 9:36, John 7:37-38), I believe that God is calling his children to become “tastier” followers of Jesus that will increase the awareness of the thirst in all people for the only relationship in life that will truly satisfy.   In pursuit of this calling, I attended the first North American training session for The Saline Process® in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 6-7th, 2024 and was greatly blessed by the wisdom and passion of godly brothers and sisters in Christ. 

My integration of faith and healthcare began as a medical student at the University of Toronto in 1998. I had the privilege of attending a conference on sharing our faith in health care called “The Saline Solution” by Dr Walt Larimore and Dr Bill Peel. I still remember one of the teachers who inspired me, Dr Paul Pitt, Family Physician and then-President of CMDA Canada. I was blessed to hear many examples of physicians sharing their faith with patients in a sensitive manner, asking permission and learning to observe for God’s working in a patient’s life. I finished residency in Toronto with some occasional opportunities to pray with patients. I stayed in Toronto working in the area of Developmental Paediatrics and had the privilege of journeying with a few medical students over the years. In the August 2024, I was preparing to speak to a few clerks about faith and medicine and I was looking for an up-to-date reference to “The Saline Solution” when I discovered the The Saline Process® training in November in Louisville.  I had been convicted over the past few years that I should pray more for opportunities to talk about spirituality with my patients and was excited to sign up for the session. 

The Saline Process® is described as the grandchild of “The Saline Solution” and “Faith Prescriptions” and is taught by a ministry called IHS Global, whose vision is “Equipping Believers as Intentional Witnesses: Where they Live. Where they Work. Where they Play”. I found out that the letters “IHS” are the first three letters in Greek for “Jesus” so the ministry name flows from the Great Commission in Matthew 28. It literally means  “Jesus Global”. The ministry has trained more than 50,000 witnesses in 129 countries (50 of which are restricted). The Saline Process® Witness Training answered 5 questions:  

  1. Why is Faith Important in Healthcare?  
  2. What Are the Opportunities and Barriers to Fulfilling God’s Call? 
  3. What Is My Part? 
  4. What Tools Will Help Me Cultivate, Sow, and Harvest?   
  5. How Should I Respond to What I’ve Learned?

The answer to the first question was simple yet much needed to provide a foundation for practice. Faith is important in healthcare because a) Science says so and b) God says so. We reviewed over 26 references on the positive benefits of spirituality in different areas of healthcare. As a specialist, a reasonable conclusion from the evidence for me was that it is “Best Practice” to address spirituality in some way with every patient. For the second question, we discussed the unique opportunities that health professionals have and the privilege and respect shown to us. However we are in the middle of a spiritual battle, (Eph 6:10-19) and there are many barriers (heart/emotional, mind/cognitive and will/volitional) that patients and colleagues have towards God and also many barriers that Christian health professionals have (lack of time, training/knowledge, faith, vitality) to incorporating faith in their practice. The third question helped us consider our part in the Saline Process, specifically the importance of praying for God to remove barriers, and spiritual vitality, and the 5 Cs of spiritual influence: Christ like Character, Compassion, Professional Competence, Wise Communication, and Courage. The very exciting 4th section reviewed 8 different tools including: prayer, asking questions, taking a spiritual history, faith flags, faith stories, truth prescriptions, the gospel, and referrals to other mature Christians.   The 5th section encouraged us to reflect on what God is leading us to do in response of what we learned. We were reminded that as believers, we are all like the moon, reflecting the light of the Son, and that patients are all on a journey and God is working in everyone’s lives. As I reflected on the sharing from brothers and sisters in Christ, I was convicted of a few truths and applications:

  1. Spirituality is a major contributor to health and I should incorporate one question to ask in every new consultation and offering to explore spiritual solutions in difficult or stressful situations.  
  2. Looking at the FICA history tool, I felt that one of the questions was relevant to ask all my new patients with developmental disabilities and their parents:  ““Do you have spiritual beliefs, practices, or values that help you to cope with stress, difficult times, or what you are going through right now?” I could also ask about Community supports “Are you a part of a religious or spiritual community?  Is your community of support to you and how?  Or for those who do not identify with a community: “Is there a group of people you really love or who are important to you?”
  3. To reflect on the modified Engel Scale about where a person is in his relationship to God and the presence of emotional, intellectual and volitional barriers.  This would then lead to appropriate tools such as asking questions, and sharing faith flags, faith stories, or truth prescriptions. 
  4. I came to the conference with two brothers from my church, a family physician and a dentist and we are excited to continue meeting twice a month to discuss what God has been teaching us about the use of the tools.
  5. I am very interested in attending a future training at the CMDA US conference in St Louis, Missouri, to become qualified trainer for The Saline Process® Witness training. 

As we finished our last session, Dr Gabor Gyori was illustrating the role of the Holy Spirit and prayer in overcoming the volitional barriers to God, and he repeated the proverb “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Then another teacher, Dr James Peipon, President of Ukraine Medical Outreach, chimed in, “But you can salt his oats!” May God make us salty and flavourful as we share Christ’s love and wisdom with a thirsty world and point everyone to the Living Water that satisfies.