If nothing else, the World Cup Football tournament has been a great reminder that one is too small a number to achieve greatness. The high profile first round casualties like Argentina, France and Portugal had some wonderfully talented individual players, but in a team game, it is teams and not individuals who win tournaments.

And life is a team game. Whilst we all admire those who have made great achievements in sport, music, literature, science and medicine, the greatest individual achievers recognise that they stand on the shoulders of others. Even Einstein didn't work in a vacuum but said, 'Many times a day I realise how much my inner and outer life is built on the labours of my fellow men, both living and dead…'

As medics we owe a huge debt to 'those who have gone before' and those with whom we now work. Gene Wilkes, in his book Jesus on Leadership sums up the advantages of teams over individuals as follows:

• Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas and energy than individuals.
• Teams maximise a leader's potential and minimise his weaknesses.
• Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal.
• Teams keep leaders accountable.
• Teams can simply do more than individuals.

Few people are fond of admitting that they can't do everything. But as John Maxwell, author of Laws of Teamwork, puts it, 'Spinning more plates doesn't increase your talent - it increases your likelihood of dropping a plate. The question is not whether or not you can do everything by yourself; it's how soon you realise that you can't.' The essence of good leadership is delegation, as Jethro taught Moses.

As a family we are currently reading through 1 Kings. Chapter 6 describes how Solomon built his temple; but chapter 5 tells us he had 30,000 labourers, 70,000 carriers and 80,000 stonecutters to help him - supervised and directed by 3,300 foremen! It was a team, and a very large one at that, who built God's temple in Solomon's time, and it is a much larger team who are building God's living temple, his church, today. And we are all part of it.

I wonder if it has struck you that God himself is a team. The three persons of the Trinity work together; in a smoothly functioning hierarchy - The Father sends the Son who sends the Spirit. And each person of the Godhead has a different role. We pray by the Spirit through the Son to the Father. In choosing the twelve, Jesus chose and shaped a team; and his desire was that their love and unity would testify to the truth of the Gospel, and that his church would follow that team pattern by using their respective gifts to 'prepare God's people for works of service' (Ephesians 4:12).

Christian Medical Fellowship is called to reflect this pattern of team-working. There is an office team in London; but CMF is much more than an office team. There is a team of Staffworkers serving our student members. And each area of the fellowship's ministry and 'administry' relies on 'committees' that are in reality teams; our students' and juniors' ministry, our publications, our overseas ministry and our finances. Teams put together Triple Helix and Nucleus and this newsletter. Teams run our conferences. CMF teams will travel to the former USSR and Eastern Europe this summer to run evangelistic camps. And in every region of the country and in every medical school there are teams of Christian medics seeking to encourage one another and stir each other up to love and serve our master.

I hope you will be encouraged to read in this newsletter what some of the various teams that make up CMF are doing; and that in whatever family, church, NHS or other team that God has placed you, you will be reminded that nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone.

Peter Saunders CMF General Secretary