The Birth of a Ministry
I went into medicine to help people. I wanted them to get better. And I had the idea that medicine was the way to help people get better. But after completing my medical school training, my specialty training in Emergency Medicine, and working in hospital and outpatient settings, I came to realize that medicine wasn’t the answer I was looking for. I could treat patients with medicine, but they didn’t usually get better. They just continued to get worse over time. Frustrated with the lack of real results, I decided to change the focus of my practice and learn something different—something that would help people truly get better.
I left my practice and moved to Alabama to learn/work at Uchee Pines Institute (www.ucheepines.org) in their lifestyle center. I learned how to use natural remedies and lifestyle interventions to help individuals begin to reverse their diseases and get off many of their medications. And what I learned was very beneficial. The changes that were made by some of my patients, and the healing results that they saw in their lives was nothing less than amazing. But as I was working in this setting, I realized that my patients’ lifestyles were only expressions of something deeper, and the reason they were sick was not as simple as their diet and lack of exercise. There was something more fundamental that I needed to understand to help my patients have lasting change.
It was in this context that I began to understand and explore the impact that one’s thought patterns have on health outcomes. As I began to see this correlation more clearly, and as I began to explore the interrelationship of thoughts with health behaviors and health outcomes, I became more and more convinced that the key to true, lasting health is found in the mind. And as I began to work more and more closely with my patients in this area, I came to see that everyone I was dealing with had false thought patterns (lies) that were associated with their diseases.
I came to understand that our actions and reactions are determined by our paradigm (worldview or perspective), and that in order to change one’s actions and reactions, one must adopt a new paradigm. For the last several years, I have made it my primary focus to help individuals see the error of their current paradigm and adopt a new paradigm based upon truth. And for those who accept the truth and allow it to displace the paradigm of lies that they have lived by, they experience dramatic improvements in their mood, health and relationships.
In 2021, the Lord allowed circumstances to coalesce to convince me that it was time to resign from Uchee Pines Institute and start a new ministry that would focus on developing resources and services to help as many people as possible to go free through the adoption of a new paradigm. (For the record, I absolutely loved my time and the people at Uchee Pines, and it was a hard decision to leave—one I made with much reluctance at the beginning).
With this objective in mind, New Paradigm Ministries was born. New Paradigm Ministries is a religious, charitable, not-for-profit organization which restores people from their personal and social struggles to LIFE (Live Free, Improve Relationships, Find Purpose, Experience Health). This is accomplished through education, media, health-promoting products and lifestyles, and in the future, it will include the LIFE Restoration App, LIFE Restoration programs, LIFE Coach training, LIFE Transformation Programs, and more.
Our motto is: Restoring LIFE (Live Free • Improve Relationships • Find Purpose • Experience Health) to people in bondage. Our Mission is to provide a network of resources, services, personnel, and facilities to restore people to LIFE and equip them to restore others to LIFE as well. And our vision is to be the “go-to” source for LIFE resources and services to the world.
New Paradigm Ministries seeks to fill one of the most important voids still existing—laity-led Biblical counseling (coaching) services provided to the local community to assist individuals to freedom from their bondage. Individuals and families are fragmenting and failing at alarming rates, and communities and churches are severely affected because of it. People don’t know how to go free from their personal problems, and many don’t even know what freedom looks like. They need to be restored to freedom through the truth of the Gospel that is relevant to today’s issues.
New Paradigm Ministries will fill this void by developing resources (books, workbooks, videos, apps, etc.) and training (LIFE Coach Course, LIFE Restoration Program Facilitator Course, etc.) for individuals to go free from their own personal problems and then to help others go free as well.
We will develop a network of program facilitators that can use their local church to host New Paradigm LIFE Restoration Programs for their community. We will develop a network of New Paradigm LIFE Coaches that can personally help others to go free through a personal coach model outside of the church context. And we will develop a network of long-term, residential New Paradigm Life Transformation Programs to provide an environment and structure for those struggling with issues that cannot be adequately resolved through the LIFE Restoration or LIFE Coach models.
The New Paradigm LIFE Restoration App, the New Paradigm LIFE Restoration Program and the New Paradigm LIFE Coach network will help individuals with issues of stress management, mild to moderate depression and anxiety, unhealthy relationships, addictions, past trauma, anger management, resilience, and more. The New Paradigm Life Transformation residential programs will assist individuals with severe life issues (addictions, abuse, etc.) that require long-term (9-18 months) structure, life skills training, and exposure to the Gospel to help individuals overcome their life-destroying behavior patterns and reintegrate functionally into society.
Currently, we are developing the ministry website (www.npmin.org), offering virtual counseling sessions and health consultations that can be scheduled online (www.calendly.com/npmin/), offering virtual or in-person presentations and seminars (contact us at [email protected]), and continuing to produce health-related natural products and literature (www.betterlivingcreations.com). Please feel free to contact us for any of your needs and refer your friends and family as well. We want to help you and your loved ones to be free, healthy, and whole.
Mark Sandoval, MD