Giving thanks is good for the soul, and a great way of lifting our spirits when we feel life's burdens weighing us down. And as Christian doctors we have much to be thankful for: not least being born into circumstances that enabled us to take advantage of some the best medical training in the world. We have received education, status, wealth and resources that most of the world can only dream of, not to mention the surpassing privilege of being God's children, and serving him.
UK doctors are amongst the best trained and resourced on the planet; at a time when much of the world is crying out for good medical care. And we live at a time when international travel, telecommunications and globalisation make the world a global village. In Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, [1] our neighbour is anyone, regardless of ethnic origin and social class, whom we have the ability to help; the AIDS sufferer in Botswana, the blind in Sierra Leone, the drug addict in Beijing and the homeless in Calcutta are now our neighbours.
As a fellowship, we are increasingly aware that, whilst opposition to the Gospel is growing, we live at a time of unparalleled opportunity and privilege for touching and transforming broken lives through the words and works of Christ. Jesus' command to 'preach and to heal' [2] has not changed, but our generation of Christian doctors is the best placed of all in history to fulfil it and we have been uniquely privileged with the training and resources to do so.
Of course, privilege comes with responsibility as Jesus tells us. Christian Medical Fellowship exists to equip us to fulfil the tasks to which God is calling us, serving our patients, integrating our faith and practice, sharing our faith, contributing to medical mission and being a voice for Christian values in healthcare in our church, community and profession.
Each year we are doing more in all these areas and the call on CMF's services grows. In 2002 we:
- Held a record number of conferences
- Took on a part-time Student Secretary and four other student staff
- 'Broke in' a new Overseas Support Secretary
- Launched a redesigned CMF website and a new website for schools
- Gave gifts of CMF literature to 3,000 schools in the UK and over 3,000 Christian doctors and students in the developing world
- Took on a full time publications/research assistant
- Sent nine CMF teams abroad to help develop national sister organisations
- Made more than 20 radio and TV broadcasts and were quoted in over 50 newspaper articles
This rate of change has brought some growing pains and we have wondered whether we should be scaling back our activities? But our income actually exceeded expenditure by a total of £100,000 in 2000 and 2001 and in 2002 we expect to finish with a small deficit of around than £20,000 on a total turnover in excess of £800,000.
Given the huge opportunities we have, and the increasing number of emails, letters, requests and enquiries we receive, the CMF executive actually believes that God is calling us to increase our activities, so over the page we have laid out our vision for 2003. Of course this will cost more; and we believe the best way of paying for it is to raise our subscriptions for members in full-time medical employment (except juniors up to 5 years qualified). We have done our sums carefully and believe we can do everything on the pages overleaf for £110,000… which will be covered by a subscription of just £10 per qualified member per month (£120 pa). We believe it is the least we can do in response God's giving to us. And we believe, for the reasons overleaf, that the time to do it is now. Will you join us in the challenge?
