When I was student secretary of ICMDA I looked back to the life-changing days I spent at the ICMDA World Congress in Durban, South Africa in 1998 as a 4th year medical student. Combining excellent international Bible teaching and medical seminars with a mix of nationalities from dozens of nations, it was electrifying and had a profound impact on me and on the development of Christian medical leaders in many countries. I sometimes reflected on the last time one of its forerunner gatherings had been in the UK – the 1980 International Congress of Christian Medical Students in Oxford, and considered how this pivotal event must have played a similar role one generation back.
So when I heard about the publication of John Stott’s Bible teaching from ICCMS 1980 I immediately ordered a set of CDs online and they have occupied many stimulating hours on the motorway as I drive to and from work. They are vintage Stott – incisive, warm, challenging and eminently applicable. I’m currently on the second run through and gleaning much from them again.
In a masterful analysis, Stott covers a broad range of the challenges that we face as Christian doctors in five excellent talks: Our Personal Integrity, Our Vocational Service, Our Social Responsibility, Our Ethical Distinctiveness and Our Global Perspective. He challenges us to be whole, integrated Christians, seeing our medical careers as service to God and a calling from him to be done for his glory. He reminds us that God is more interested in who we are than what we do. Destroying the false distinction between ‘evangelism’ and ‘social action’, Stott calls us to integrate the two and serve others in both word and deed because they are made in God’s image, whether in the UK or abroad.
Though not medically trained himself, Stott came from a medical family and displays an excellent understanding of the challenges and pitfalls we face as Christian medics. The overall title, ‘Serving Christ in Medicine’ sums it up neatly – in our medical careers, wherever and to whatever God takes us, we must never lose sight of who it is we are ultimately there to serve. I warmly commend them to any Christian healthcarer. Buy two and give one away!
John Stott – Serving Christ in Medicine is available from the CMF bookstore