I s s u e    N o. 1 2   :    A u t u m n    2 0 0 5    A . D .

In his 2001 book, “Bowling Alone”, Robert Putnam argued that civil society was breaking down as we become more disconnected from our families, neighbours, communities, churches, etc.  We just don’t join anything any more, but instead get caught up in the pressures of commuting miles to work, shopping in large, out of town supermarkets and living in isolated homes where we do not even know our neighbours’ names.  Our main relationship with the outside world is through our TVs, radio and the Internet.

You only need to look at the regular church statistics to see how this sense of isolation and withdrawal has affected the Christian community.  Pews are increasingly empty, and those that do turn up are less and less likely to give time and energy to the life of the church.  It seems that as a nation we are too busy, too individualistic and too preoccupied.

We can all relate to this in some manner.  I am up at 5 most mornings, I spend three hours a day commuting, eight hours at work, and by the time I have got home in the evening, eaten and spent time with my kids, all I am good for is to watch the first half hour of Newsnight before collapsing into bed!  And I do not have to contend with shift work, regular weekends and Bank Holidays, night duty, split shifts etc, etc.  I am sure we can all tell similar tails.  Where do we fit anything else into this kind of punishing lifestyle? 

But is this the way that God would have us live?  Twenty First Century living in the Western world is not really in harmony with the way most people in the world live, or indeed how we lived here a couple of hundred years ago.  We are meant to live in community, meant to know our neighbours, be near family and friends, to share a common life together in some manner.  This is the reason that Jesus never talked of faith just in terms of a vertical, one-to-one relationship with God, but also as a horizontal relationship with our fellow believers and with the wider world.  Jesus came to bring us life in all its fullness.  The Church was created to allow us to share in that life together.

And we have a God who understands relationships intimately because He is three – Father, Son and Holy Spirit in an eternal, loving relationship.  Individualism is, if anything a result of sin, rather than something in the original design of human nature.


Why CNM?

So, having established that we are made to live in a common life together, especially as believers in Jesus, why then does CNM matter?  Surely, if we have a local church, why do we need a special fellowship of Christian nurses?  Are we not adding yet another meeting and set of commitments to an already over stretched diary?

I guess from my own experience the answer is quite simple.  Much as I get a lot of encouragement and support within my church, the reality is that the church is not usually geared up to supporting people in the workplace.  Because, if we face the facts, our workplace is where we have most contact with people, where we put the largest part of our time and energy.  It is often the only place most of us come in contact with non-Christians on a sustained and regular basis.  The pressures we face as nurses and midwives are also quite different from those most of our church fellows experience – we deal with illness, disability, death and dying, birth and pregnancy – real human joy, suffering and tragedy, on a day-to-day basis, in a way that most people in our society only see sanitised on TV screens.  And we do this in an environment where the Christian faith is seen as at best a harmless irrelevance, and at worst as a danger to be marginalised at all times.

We need others who understand these pressures to stand alongside us, because this is where God has called us to be – this is our ministry to God, our mission field.  Church meetings and events are often useful and valuable, but to be honest, how often do we see many non-Christians at a church event?  It is at work that we are the most effective witnesses to Christ, not in Church.  And at work, we have no chance to hide behind events and meetings; we are often the only Christian in our workplace, and we will be watched, not just for what we say or what we do, but who we are! 

Francis of Assisi once said that he preached the gospel on all occasions, using words if he really had to.  I have heard it said that people often cannot hear what we say as Christians because who we are screams too loudly.  In other words, how we live, our attitudes, behaviour, moods and reactions speak volumes for the God whose name we own.  Let’s be honest, that is an awful pressure to bear, let alone to bear alone.  Yet I know of very few churches that seek to empower us ordinary believers in the workplace to be witnesses to Jesus.  So often, the message we get from church, however unintended, is that our real Christian work and witness is within the four walls of the church, not out in the home and the workplace!  But surely Jesus is Lord of all our lives, even (or especially!) our careers.

A CNM group, even if it only meets infrequently, is a chance to share with others who are in the same boat as us, to learn from those who have been there longer, to encourage others who are struggling, to create a brief, regular space where God can speak into our busy work lives and professional practice.  Even if there is no local, group near you, the strength of the fellowship, especially in this modern telecommunications age, is that we can share over distances by phone, email, or through regular publications.

And for student nurses and the newly qualified, coming out into the unsheltered environment of work for the fist time can be a traumatic experience (mine certainly was – I can recall vividly, spending most of my first year getting things wrong and being torn off a strip by my charge nurse – I can recall regularly thinking ‘how can I ever say that I am Christian at work again?!’). 

CNM is now about to become a fellowship for graduates and students – partly because we believe that students have a lot that they can get from being with mature, Christian nurses and midwives, and partly because the energy and fresh thinking of students does a lot to invigorate and challenge us oldies!  Tim James’ article gives some of the other reasons and background to this change.

But for CNM to be able to provide this space to bring God into our professional practice, we need the energy and commitments of our members.  We all have something to share from our own experiences as Christian nurses and midwives that can encourage others. 

If you feel able to, we would love to hear your stories and experiences, and be able to share them through CNM News.  We hope to have more talking points and issues for discussion in upcoming editions of the newsletter, and we would love to hear from you what issues are coming up where you work.  Questions, letters, articles and ideas – all are most welcome.  We are a fellowship; all of us, not just the CNM Council, and we all have as much to give as to receive from being a part of CNM.  You are the life of CNM, and we need you!