Middle-aged with a Mission for Christ

My younger brother lent me Timothy Dudley Smith’s two-volume biography of John Stott – an ordained Anglican minister and well-known in circles in which he is well-known. I airily pronounced that I was little interested in biographies of professional Christians. But my brother responded that the biography was also inter-woven with the history of evangelicalism in the 20th century – a topic which does intrigue me.

Here are some observations:

“Bash”, a man who had much influence on John Stott during Stott’s early years, used to write long letters to him with all sorts of advice. Do I pour that much of myself into even my own children?

While a student at Cambridge (ie, before being a professional Christian) John Stott woke at six each morning for 90 minutes Bible study and prayer. When I was a student – ie, in the same situation – I did not do this. A further clue:

“[in order to get up] he would walk out of a lively discussion at the stroke of 9.30 [pm]

David Watson – another ordained Anglican minister – wrote about the camps that John Stott helped organise:

I learnt how to lead a person to Christ, how to answer common questions, how to follow up a young convert, how to lead a group Bible study, how to give a Bible study to others, how to prepare and give a talk…

I believe that children in Christian families should learn the above, if possible, from their fathers. Am I doing that for my children?

[at age 18] He knew God was calling him to train for the ordained ministry (p152)

Helpful would have been how he ‘knew’.  I am wary of young people wanting to be elders.  I understand that a well-known Bible teacher and church leader has said that the only ‘calling’ in the New Testament is the call to repent and believe – ie, to become a Christian.

p221 talks about John Stott ‘visiting’ homes in the parish as a curate. He was a child of his time but when did ‘pastoral visiting’ become the preserve of a handful of ordained people rather than members of a church caring for each other?

There were homeless people and beggars in London in the 50s – as there still are today – and pp238 and 9 recount John Stott’s experience as one of them for 48 hours. He did it as a genuine attempt to understand their lives – including being rejected at cafés when asking for food in exchange for work.

John Stott is a man who prays – far more than I do. Why is that?

One contributor to the biography recalls telling John Stott

God had rocked our Baptist universities and churches, calling many thousands to the ministry. (p265)

Better if the result had been mass turnings to Christ and people’s lives – at home and at work – changed. But no, the result was more professional Christians. But John Stott does not appear to be guilty of this thinking:

I had implied that anybody who was truly consecrated would end up ordained. He [Stott] felt quite rightly that this was tough on all the devout doctors, lawyers, business men, etc, in the congregation. So his rebuke was richly deserved” – p273

But the writer was already a curate. He was a teacher in Israel and he believed that?

On p457 the author writes of someone who had read John Stott’s ‘Basic Christianity’ and who had then written to John Stott about having, as a result, committed his life to Jesus

By the time the letter was sent, the writer was in the ordained ministry.

Which proves what exactly? Perhaps nothing more that he wanted to emulate the man whom God had used to convert him. The implication – that the very best proof and result of conversion is to be a professional Christian – is so damaging to the cause of Christ.

I was impressed by John Stott’s personal evangelism – always presenting the gospel to people at church. But then, as a ‘professional’ people expect it of him and he would rarely meet people outside a Christian context so they were ‘fair game’. But do I do the same to newcomers at church? I suspect that most would say they were Christians already – but for those who are not, would I know how to do follow-up effectively?

While recounting John Stott’s time in the late 50s as an evangelistic preacher at universities, the biographer talks about students being good soil for the gospel since “they are open to influence” (p419). Does seizing on this truth cause - albeit indirectly – lack of fruitfulness in middle age? After all, if one is not a professional Christian but rather engaged in “work to do and bills to pay” there might be little contact with young people “open to influence”. One then sees God at work only a little and there is then the danger of disillusion. Or is that just me?

John Stott also bewails the lack of non- Christian friends that Christians have: “the ordinary Christian is not mixing with non-Christians”. Perhaps this is because we are too busy serving the “Sunday nine-’til-one monster” [ask me].

“Evangelism as a continuing obligation on the laity” was one of John Stott’s regular themes. But how did it – like parish visiting above – ever stop being so? The clergy/laity divide and the elevation of professional Christians (see this whole site) is responsible – at least partly.

By the end of this first volume I am looking forward to the second and concluding one. I have learnt lots about evangelicalism in the UK in the 20th century and how God used John Stott to reclaim (parts of) the Church of England for historic orthodox Biblical Christianity.

How has this played into the present-day situation as church attendance and membership continues to decline among people born in Britain? As hinted at above, some elements of church life – the apparent inaction of ‘ordinary’ members, at least in the Church of England – seems to be far removed from Biblical Christianity. Perhaps we continue to see the legacy of this attitude as people give up on the formal, awkward apparently lifeless faith of their parents and grandparents.

But the evangelical arm of the Church of England has been strengthened – at least relatively. A generation ago – so I am told – new students who were already mature Christians tended to come from non-conformist churches – now they are more likely to come from Anglican churches. Perhaps that is part of John Stott’s legacy

This entry was posted on February 23, 2010 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Book Review, Church of England, evangelism, John Stott, Prayer, Well-known Christian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.