Last October CMF embarked on a programme of growth and development involving an increase in our annual expenditure from £1million to £1.3million annually over three years.
Over the last twelve months we have:
- Strengthened our graduate ministry through the appointment of four qualified doctors as regional staffworkers (Audrey Chalmers, Fiona Schneider, Julian Churcher and Charlotte Hattersley) to support and strengthen connections between doctors.
- Developed an associate staffworker programme, whereby doctors drop a day of work to serve CMF members one day a week on a voluntary basis. We now have four – David Crick and Paul Robertson working amongst doctors and Megan Kibbey and Rachel Wilson amongst students.
- Diversified our communications department with the appointment of a new head of communications (Catherine Butcher), new head of public policy (Philippa Taylor), senior editor (Philip Nicolls) and media producer (Andrew Horton).
- Launched a ministry to nurses in partnership with Christian Nurses and Midwives (CNM) taking on two regional staffworkers, Annie Leggett and Dimity Grant-Frost (both qualified nurses), to develop a new national ministry amongst nursing students and young graduates.
- Replaced staff members whom God has called on to pastures new. Pablo Fernandez has taken over from Kevin Vaughan as head of graduate ministries, Andrew Fergusson's role as head of communications has been shared out between those above, Ruth Haley has stepped in for Sarah Whitaker (graduates' coordinator) who is on maternity leave and Scott Stadalsky has taken the regional student staffworker baton from Matt Lillicrap.
Our Christmas appeal this year focuses on student ministry, the lifeblood of CMF, in the lead up to our national students' conferences and biggest ever international student leaders' conference in February 2012. Running our student ministry costs £200,000 a year of which student subscriptions cover only £5,000, so it relies hugely on the support of our qualified members.
There has been a promising start to the development fund programme, and this year we are on target to meet our budget, provided the annual Christmas appeal raises our target of £100,000.
In 2012, the second year of the three year programme, our focus will be moving from the staff team to the members serving you with better:
Connections – in your workplace, church, district, specialty and special interest
Opportunities – summer teams, overseas service, mentoring and discipleship
Resources – publications, teaching resources, talks, e-news, blogs and new media
Training – whole person healthcare, ethics, mission, evangelism and apologetics
Support – advocacy, advice, pastoral care and mentoring.
In addition we will be reaching out to others beyond our immediate fold through:
Friends of CMF – church friends can now become friends of CMF
Link churches – helping churches engage at the interface of Christianity and medicine
Recruitment – of new doctors, medical students and nurses.
Please join in as all these new initiatives come to fruition, equipping medics together to speak and live for Jesus Christ in this generation.
Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. Isaiah 54:2 (ESV).
Peter Saunders is CMF Chief Executive
Serving Christ in medicine
Evangelical leader Rev Dr John Stott died in July, aged 90. His father was a heart specialist and Stott joked that his first words on his mother's knee were 'coronary thrombosis'.
Much loved for his skill as a Bible teacher, Stott was guest speaker at the International Conference of Christian Medical Students held in Oxford in 1980.
Tapes of these talks and others by Stott, were discovered earlier this year in the archives of Johnson House. As relevant today as they were in 1980, they have been re-mastered onto CD and five of the talks have been produced as a box set available to order online from CMF
New resource for counsellors and pastoral carers
Unwanted Same-sex Attraction – issues of pastoral and counselling support is a new CMF booklet written by Andrew Goddard and Glynn Harrison.
The booklet considers what forms of support can legitimately be offered, by those who hold traditional ethical views, to those who share them and who struggle personally with unwanted same-sex attraction.
A copy of the booklet is enclosed with this mailing in line with our commitment to send CMF booklets to all members.
Endorsing the book, Rev Sean Docherty of St Mellitus College, London, says, 'As a Christian who has experienced same-sex attraction but moved away from a gay identity, I found this paper deeply helpful. It sets out a framework for Christian ministry among people with same-sex attraction which is psychologically rigorous, theologically orthodox and pastorally sensitive.'
Additional copies available from www.cmf.org.uk
