Essentials
Stott and Local Church Ministry
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- Written by: Wei-Han Kuan
Wei-Han Kuan
John Stott was inducted as the new Rector of All Souls’, Langham Place in 1950. He outlined in his first sermon five criteria that he believed ought to be applied to their local church ministry.
These were published that week as his ministry manifesto in the church newsletter, All Souls. Timothy Dudley-Smith writes that Stott at this time knew himself to be, ‘a product of Iwerne and CICCU’; that is, a product of the famous and influential public school (English private school) camping ministry of the Rev’d ‘Bash’ Nash, and of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union—a progenitor of the AFES and IFES movements. Their methods of ministry informed his five criteria:
- The priority of prayer;
- Expository preaching;
- Regular evangelism;
- Careful follow-up of enquirers and converts; and
- Systematic training of helpers and leaders.
John Stott the Person: Reflections on Uncle John
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- Written by: Richard Trist
Richard Trist is Dean of The Anglican Institute, Ridley College, Melbourne
What a privilege it was to get to know John Stott when my family joined the congregation of All Souls’ Langham Place in the mid-1990s.
By the time we had arrived, ‘Uncle John’ had retired as rector of the church and was carrying out a wider preaching and teaching ministry. He still however attended church services, prayer meetings and staff gatherings as often as he could.
Our first encounter with John occurred just after we arrived in the parish. We were busily unpacking boxes and settling into our apartment when the phone rang. ‘It’s John Stott here. I just want to wish you a warm welcome to London and to All Souls. I have been praying for you all. How are you and the children, Luke, Sophie, Lily and Grace?’ Apart from the fact that one of my theological heroes had just phoned and invited me to join him for afternoon tea the following week, what struck me was that he was interested in us as a family. He knew each of the children by name. He had been praying for this new Australian clergy family, and amidst his busy schedule was willing to find out how we were. What a model of pastoral care!
John Stott's Preaching: his Method and his Message
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- Written by: Peter Adam
We have good reason to thank God for John Stott.
Here I focus on his preaching, both method andmessage.
PREACHING METHOD
John visited Australia in January 1965, and this visit—one of many—had a profound effect on Australian preaching.1 He gave Bible studies on 2 Corinthians at the CMS Summer Schools in several states in Australia. Much Australian preaching at that time was on 'a text', that is, on an individual verse from the Bible, often without much regard to its context. In his Bible studies John Stott was demonstrating the obvious value of preaching from a passages of Scripture, and from consecutive passages of Scripture. His example had a profound impact on Australian preaching.2 One person who was profoundly affected by this change in preaching style was Sydney evangelist John Chapman, who reflected this way on Stott's influence:
'Prior to that, I had tended to get an idea from a passage and leap all over the Bible supporting the idea from other parts so that the people I taught knew the "idea" but not the passage from which it came or how that passage fitted into some overall argument from the Scriptures … He provided a model for expository preaching that I could copy and make my own.'3
Read more: John Stott's Preaching: his Method and his Message
John Stott's Fellow Workers
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- Written by: Julia Cameron
Julia Cameron
John Stott, one of the most productive leaders of recent times, had an unusual capacity for hard work, a gift for focused concentration, and a constant sense of being 'dissatisfied'.1
The fruit of his work, and of his ideas, was multiplied, in human terms, through four means: (i) his fellow workers, (ii) his industry, (iii) his instinctive sense of strategy, and (iv) his unique symbiotic relationships, especially with IFES2 and the Lausanne Movement. There was, for him, a porous line between friend and fellow worker. We look here at his fellow workers, glancing at the networks which extended his ministry.3
Stott's global ministry first rested on a team of two, himself and his secretary, expanding eventually in 1980 into a team of three. They called themselves 'the happy triumvirate' after Charles Simeon's use of the term for himself and his curates.4 But let us not rush ahead.
Abrahamic and Apostolic: John Stott in his Centenary Year
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- Written by: Chris Wright
Chris Wright is the Global Ambassador & Ministry Director, Langham Partnership International
'I am a great believer,' John Stott would often say, 'in the importance of BBC. Not the British Broadcasting Company, nor Bethlehem Bible College, nor even Beautiful British Columbia. But Balanced Biblical Christianity.' In my own assessment of John's life and ministry I suggest a biblical balance of Old and New Testaments by saying that the scale and scope of John Stott's significance within the global church has been both Abrahamic and apostolic.
ABRAHAMIC
John Stott was Abrahamic in two ways, of which the first is the most obvious.
Read more: Abrahamic and Apostolic: John Stott in his Centenary Year
Bible Study: 2 Corinthians 5:1-10
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- Written by: Natalie Rosner
What’s Camping got to do with Eternity?
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
Natalie Rosner
I wasn’t aware until recently that John Stott gave Bible Studies on 2 Corinthians in 1965 at the Anglican Church Missionary Society Summer Schools in several states in Australia. So, it’s with some trepidation that I share the framework and reasoning behind a recent sermon I preached on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10.
This is a passage with an inbuilt metaphor: our current bodies as an earthly tent, and our future bodies with Jesus in the new creation as ‘a building from God, an eternal house in heaven’ (2 Cor 5:1). Because this metaphor is so effective in helping to both understand the passage and apply the passage to our own context, it shaped the structure and theme of my sermon. The sermon was titled ‘What’s camping got to do with eternity?’ and had three sections as outlined below.
Women, Leadership and Evangelism
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- Written by: Robyn Claydon
Robyn Claydon
A personal account of the growing recognition by John Stott and the Lausanne Movement of the gifting and acceptance of women in all aspects of Christian leadership in the task of world evangelisation
When it was decided to hold a second International Lausanne Congress in 1989 in Manila, a 10-person Planning Committee was set up to work on every aspect of the Conference. Each person represented a different part of the world and I was invited to join the Congress Committee representing Australasia. Nine men and I worked closely for five years in what was a challenging, exhilarating and spiritually enriching experience. John Stott, who had been the Chief Architect of the Lausanne Covenant that came out of Lausanne 74, was asked to be the Chief Architect of what was to become the Manila Manifesto.