2021 is a big year. It is 100 years since Barby’s father was born and 10 years since my father died—but also 100 years since John Stott was born and 10 years since John Stott died. 

These three have been the most influential men in my life. Here I’d like to focus on John Stott (as I have done on numerous occasions in this blog: on his 90th birthday, after his death, with his books, reviewing a biography, at his gravesite, and even inspiring a post on angry birds, my teachers, to name just a few 😁). But you needn’t worry. Hagiography is not my thing, although stopping to honour, every now and then, most certainly is … and now is such a time.

As a boy I have vague memories of John Stott coming to our school in India (Woodstock School) and having God spark a near revival in the community through his talks. At 21, I travelled across to the USA for Urbana ’79, a massive triennial student mission convention. John Stott expounded Romans 1-5 and, as he did so, God called me to biblical preaching. A light turned on, a heart was strangely warmed and, by God’s grace, a life has been focused ever since. Through my 20s and 30s the books of John Stott became the foundation for my philosophy and practice of ministry. At 41, I travelled across from Auckland to Sydney for his final weekend in that city. I spent much of the weekend in the back seat of his ‘taxi’, as a friend was doing the driving. On the final afternoon, in a Q&A with students, he responded to “How would you sum up the state of the church around the world?” by turning and writing three words on the whiteboard. Growth without depth. Unbeknown to me at the time, a seed was planted in my heart on that afternoon and, eventually, on my 49th birthday I found myself worshipping in the church with which John Stott’s name is forever linked—All Souls, Langham Place—on the very first day of my life with Langham Partnership, the ministry which he founded that is devoted to cultivating depth. And yes, with all this having gone on before, I still feel a little sadness that on those multiple visits to the UK in those early years, I was never able to visit John Stott and have the opportunity of praying together. That would have been so precious.

Believe it or not, on the verge of 2021, two more books on John Stott have emerged. 

In the first volume, Stott on the Christian Life; Between Two Worlds, Tim Chester journeys through John Stott’s writings and, in just 236 pages, provides the reader with a potted synopsis of what Stott believed. In a world that has forgotten what ‘evangelical’ means, here is its true description. It is beautifully done, managing to be both a buffet for the seasoned Stott-reader and an appetizer for the one sampling the Stott menu for the first time. To give you an idea, here are Chester’s chapter titles with the key Stott books, to which he refers, in brackets:

A Christian Mind (Your Mind Matters, The Contemporary Christian, Issues Facing Christians)

Preaching the Word (Between Two Worlds (US), or I Believe in Preaching (UK))

Satisfaction through Substitution (The Cross of Christ)

Repudiation and Surrender (Men Made New & the debate at Keswick around holiness)

Life in the Spirit (Baptism and Fullness)

Embedded in the Church (One People, The Contemporary Christian)

Reaching a Lost World (Christian Mission in the Modern World)

Loving a Needy World (The Contemporary Christian, Issues Facing Christians Today)

All of Life under the Lord of All (The Radical Disciple)

A Vision of Christ (Focus on Christ)

It does start to look like an album of John Stott’s Greatest Hits…

John Stott’s most recent visit to New Zealand was in 1969 and so, if you do the maths, the only people with any memory of his ministry on these shores are likely to be over 70 years of age. That has always saddened me—and it shows in the church here. An entire generation has missed out. But Stott himself must take some of the blame. That visit in 1969 was soon after the publication of Baptism & Fullness, a book that was too critical of the charismatic movement, a movement which was beginning to bring some needed light and life into the church in New Zealand. My understanding is that key leaders were wary about having him visit again. Significantly, in 1995, John Stott ‘modified his initial antagonism … (and) practically rewrote the book’ (138).

In what amounts to gentle critique, it is interesting how often Chester presses John Stott with phrases like ‘I think it would be better to say…’ (100). Rather courageous methinks, but it makes for some of the best parts of the book. With our Langham Preaching work in mind, like Chester, I’ve also noticed how ‘(Stott) preached rarely on the Old Testament’ (79) … and is his record with sermon series on the Gospel narratives that much better? This is unfortunate, especially when we are trying to cultivate a sense of ‘the single story of the Bible’, embedding the importance of biblical theology into our grassroots preaching movements. The Old Testament is essential. Maybe, in God’s gracious sovereignty, this is partly why He called an Old Testament specialist (Chris Wright) to succeed Stott in the Langham work. It has certainly helped us in Langham Preaching. Furthermore, increasingly, my sense has been that it is Stott’s theology, even more than his methodology, that travels more helpfully across time and space to these preaching movements. 

Although they do feature in numerous footnotes, a chapter engaging with Stott’s commentaries on biblical books would have been such a welcome addition to Chester’s book, distinct from the one on preaching, maybe with Understanding the Bible as the key reference. I fear that Stott’s convictions around the Bible and it’s clear, accurate and authoritative communication tends to be assumed in this volume, rather than articulated fully and persuasively. 

The second volume, Pages from a Preacher’s Notebook: Wisdom and Prayers from the Pen of John Stott, is a labour of love from Mark Meynell, a former colleague of John Stott’s at All Souls, who is now working with us in Langham Preaching. Mark has quietly become a leading authority on ‘all-things-Stott’ and an exciting feature of 2021 will be a series of podcasts that he will be hosting to mark the centenary of John Stott’s birth. In his Introduction, Mark refers to John Stott as ‘a preacher of blazing clarity’ and this ‘anthology of notes, quotes and illustrations’ (xiii) gives a glimpse into the hard work involved in achieving such clarity.

However let me get one reflection out of the way 😁… I’ve spent my life urging students not to use books (and websites) of sermon illustrations like this one. I can’t ever remember using one myself. It is far better to walk through life with a ‘trawling eye’, investing in our own imaginations and research so that we grow in our ability ‘to see the spiritually significant in the utterly ordinary’. N.T. (Tom) Wright masters this skill like no one else since CS Lewis—with the psalmist being pretty accomplished as well— and he helps us feel that such a skill can be within reach of us all (especially people in grassroots preaching movements!). 

Having expressed this reflection, I do welcome the way the subtitle speaks of ‘Wisdom and Prayers’. Apart from some of the illustrations/quotations on topics like Conversion (79-87) and Humility (115-121), there are very few that I would use in a sermon today and yet reading the wisdom is rewarding, as is praying the prayers. For those who see things differently, the usefulness of the book is enhanced greatly by having a Subject Index, a Name Index and a Scripture Index. You’ll also be keen to know that the full archive of John Stott’s illustrations and prayers is also available. It is also kinda cool to have the occasional inclusion of an original page, in John Stott’s actual handwriting. 

Mark has also digitized all John Stott’s sermon notes. On that afternoon in Sydney mentioned above, John Stott actually preached the very same sermon that I heard him preach at a TEDS chapel twenty years earlier, when I was a seminary student. It was fun to track down the sermon with Mark and discover both occasions included in the meticulous list of the dozens of occasions, taking up two pages on its own (!), on which John Stott preached that sermon.

In a particularly nice touch, the book concludes with the ‘trinitarian prayer’ which John Stott prayed each morning:

One of my prayers for 2021 is that the influence of John Stott will ripple into another generation. There is no hagiography behind this desire, just gratitude. We’ve sent these two books as a gift to our 30+ key Langham Preaching leaders across the Majority World, but methinks it is the church outside the Majority World where he is more likely to be forgotten. And yet, HIS testimony of Humility-Integrity-Simplicity is something we need more than ever, especially in this coming year.

nice chatting

Paul