Coming toward the end of my (32-year) ministry as Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church, I read Alister Chapman’s new biography of John Stott with special interest. I wanted to see how he finished at All Soul’s and how he shaped the rest of his life.
Stott became Rector at All Souls in 1950 at the age of 29. Just shy of 20 years later he told the church council on September 20, 1969 that “he wanted to stand down.” The church was not prospering as it once had. He felt his calling was to “wider responsibilities.”
The council accepted the proposal and 15 months later Michael Baughen took the helm. “Within a few years All Souls was bursting again” (75). But, Chapman observes, “by almost any measure, Stott’s ministry at All Souls was a success” (77).
Stott was still on the ministerial team at All Souls for another five years. When the severance was complete in September, 1975, he wrote, “I find myself pulled and pushed in various directions these days, and need divine wisdom to know how to establish priorities” (Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott, A Biography: The Later Years, IVP, 2001, 248).
I found this comforting. It is remarkable how many good things there are to do. And if one is ambitious to live an unwasted life for the glory of Christ, discernment is crucial. Sudden release from decades of familiar pastoral expectations can easily lead to sloth or superficial busy-ness.
Stott’s discovery was that his calling was a remarkable global ministry. “As with Jim Packer, Stott gave himself to Anglican politics but in the end tired of them. Neither had an obvious, appealing role to fill in England. Both were in demand elsewhere. The result was that two of England’s most gifted evangelicals spent most of the end of their careers serving the church beyond England’s shores” (Godly Ambition, 111).
The thesis of Chapman’s book, Godly Ambition: John Stott and the Evangelical Movement(Oxford, 2012), is that Stott “was both a Christian seeking to honor God and a very talented man who believed he had key roles to play in God’s work in the world and wanted to play them. In short, he combined two things that might seem incongruous: godliness and ambition” (8). With that double drive, “few did more than John Stott to shape global Christianity in the twentieth century” (160).
This ambition was as vital to the end of Stott’s days as his mental and physical life would sustain. One reason is that it was biblically grounded. Explaining his own understanding of ambition he said,
Ambitions for God, if they are to be worthy, can never be modest. There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God. How can we ever be content that he should acquire just a little more honour in the world?
Christians should be eager to develop their gifts, widen their opportunities, extend their influence and be given promotion in their work — not now to boost their own ego or build their own empire, but rather through everything they do to bring glory to God. (156)May every one of us, in the transitions of our lives, seek the kind of holy fire that gives both the light of discernment and the heat of ambition. All of it for the glory of God. This is my deep longing as I face whatever future God gives.
John Piper | April 27, 2012
5 comments:
Sven,
Thank you for this article by John Piper concerning Mr. Chapman's biography on the life of John Stott. I always enjoyed reading Stott's work even though his views on gay issues were somewhat archaic in my book, and as late as the 2000s were yet to be even as enlightened as C.S. Lewis' views on the subject back in the 1950s. But then again who agrees with everyone on everything?
I suppose Stott was in a very real sense a product of his own day and age and the evangelical sub-culture of that day and age that he moved in.
Btw Sven, I'm going to have to take an almost complete hiatus from your blog this coming month and a more spotty hiatus after that until September as I have two major deadlines to meet--and SOMETHING has got to give! So please, once again, try not to publish anything too interesting or conntroversial again until after Labor Day! (lol!)
Before I start my little hiatus though, I first want to comment on Walter Coles premise that the loss of young people in many first world territories is the main reason for the loss of cadets in those territories. Even though his comments were posted on Friday I just now have some time to comment back this morning. Sorry for the delay. (I need to do so in another one or two postings to not run out of characters.)
Daryl Lach
USA Central
O.K. here goes: I agree that Walter Coles has made some very valid points and that if the stress was put on Y.P. corps work in Europe, North America and Australasia in the same way that it was years ago it would certainly improve the situation.
However, I differ with Mr. Coles on just how much it would improve the situation as I think the "problem" is only part of much larger more widespread cultural and social trends taking place in post-industrial, information age societies. These changing trends are due to the modern day technologies of those societies--not the laziness of Salvationists and other church members. (though I'm sure some officers and soldiers probably have become lazy and could do much better!)
As you yourself have pointed out Sven, the stats on Y.P. work from other denominations as a whole, are just as bleak-looking as some of the Army's stats. Increase Y.P. work will make a difference but it will not any longer be a panacea for an increase in SA officer stats!
Let me explain: First off it seems interesting to me that 100 years ago this year when Bramwell Booth took over the reins of the international Army he was criticized by the old-timers of his day (read some past General's autobiographies) for changing the Army's emphasis from converting the dregs of society (as in the early days) to youth work! (the more things change the more they remain the same!)
This is not to say that reclamation and recovery worked stopped---not by a long shot--but the emphasis was put on youth work, Bramwell became known as the Young People's General, and a new phrase became a part of the Army's lexicon--"eternal springtime!"
When we see what Bramwell was up to (starting in the 1890s actually) it's obvious that this extremely brilliant administrator figured out the changing trends and demographics of his day and acted accordingly, knowing that the Army's survival depended on it.
(another posting.....)
Daryl Lach
USA Central
Continuing... What exactly happened? I can only speak for what I perceive took place in the States though I suspect similar things occurred in other first world countries too. (and of course North America and Australasia didn't have the added stressors of two world wars taking place on their soil with the possibilty of bombs falling from the skies every day!)
As early as the 1890s what is now referred to as the "traditional" family evolved and became the dominant family form from around the First World War until the early 1960s.
Of course going on and on about the loss of it as a dominant family form has unfortunately become the bread and butter of many reactionary Xian ministries. The way some Xians yack unceasingly about the loss of its dominance, one would think it was a family form that was ordained by God and dominant for 10,000 years--when in fact it wasn't!
What society had and what the Army capitalized on to become the envy of many churches in that time period were industrial age families that were for the most part much larger than today.
There was a father who was the main breadwinner and usually did hard, rote, labor in a factory or mill. There was also a mother whose main purpose in life was to bake stuff from scratch and pump out kids.
Women were, as was true for most of human history, not in control of their own reproductive capacities as birth control was not all that reliable, though Protestants were usually a little better at it than Catholics. For whatever the reason(s) my Catholic relatives thought it was their religious duty to listen to a bunch of men in dresses who never married tell them how to conduct their private married sex lives. (If any other man in a dress, who never married told them what they should be doing they would've beat him up. Go figure.))
An added note about birth control before the pill came out in 1960: As a nurse I heard some pretty funny stories from older nurses who worked OB/GYN about babies being born with IUDs attached to their foreheads! Also, in my own family I once heard my mother who had seven kids say that the only thing the IUD ever did for her was that she was able to pick up an out-of-town- rock station from Peoria. (but I digress...)
Anyway, note also that these families always had a touch of poverty connected to them and were for the most part looking for and grateful to any organization that would take their kids off of their hands for several hours a week and involve them in group activities that would hopefully keep them out of trouble---while doing it all on the cheap.
When the parents did get involved it was usually the mother because working class wives were very limited in what outside-the-home-activities they could engage in and still be considered decent women by their husbands and society at large. They were limited to activities that involved other married women and children---and once again it all had to be done on the cheap!
When the father who was usually physically tired after working, did get involved (band, scouts, etc.) it was probably a relief in some ways because after working a rote job all day he was finally able to engage in an activity of some kind that involved his brain and creative faculties.
Then you had the children. Before WWII most of them weren't even in a financial position to finish high school (or secondary school) let alone go on to higher education. Because the Army got much of its funding from the public even if sometimes officers and soldiers had to collect it byselling War Crys and standing kettles, etc. these kids were provided with activities on the cheap. When they became 18, before student loans were available in the late 1960s, if they wanted to do anything exciting or creative with their lives their only option was to apply for training college and go off to the big exciting city for a year or two on an adventure of sorts. (gotta do one last posting...)
Daryl Lach
USA Central
O.K.......I'm pretty sure I can get the rest of my thoughts down in one or two more paragraphs without them being too unrelated....
What seems to be missing in the logic of people who think that the complete answer to the dilemma the Army now faces in many quarters today, is to increase youth work, is that they don't realise that if there is an answer that answer will never be one thing anymore. It will have to be multi-faceted in a multi-faceted world.
The days of Bramwell Booth when there was one major answer to the Army's slowing down after its initial early days growth spurt are long over.
In a time when families with at least 4 to 5 kids (and often times even a dozen or more)were all over the landscape, all a corps needed to do was get a hold of a half dozen or so of them. The corps then had a thriving youth work along with a bunch of women and a few of their husbands to volunteer as YP leaders.
This will never happen again short of smashing every computer in the world and banning all birth control pills.
From this point on families will always be smaller, women will largely work outside of the home and be as tired as their husbands after a grueling work day where they have to use both their minds along with their bodies and 18 year olds will think about going to college and getting a formal education first,even if they are contemplating training later. And with all of the technologies available today rarely will parents just hand their kids over to anybody who will give them something to do!
It's not 1920 anymore or even 1959 and these are issues the Army's leadership needs to address. The answers will not be the same answers as in 1920 or 1959 but rather be much more complex. That's my take on it.....
Daryl Lach
USA Central
P.S. Btw, though it may not be so in other countries, everyone in the States knows that corps stats from years ago were never realiable. People in the know claim that they're way more reliable and honest now so maybe that's why it looks like there are such huge decreases in youth and leadership stats from 40 years ago.
There were always two standing jokes that I remember. One was that there were people on the rolls who were dead for 30 years because DHQ wouldn't let the C.O. take them off and the other one was that "so and so drove past the corps once and they put him/her down in the books as a seeker."
"You Must Go Home By the Way of the Cross, To Stand With Jesus in the Morning!"
Oops! Two more thoughts come to mind before I take off on my hiatus from this blog:
1.If the Kroc Center officers aren't derelict in their duties and do what they're suppose to be doing and actually use the centers as feeders into the Kroc Corps that should certainly help in exposing large numbers of young people to The Army's culture and provide the Army with more officer candidates in the future and
2. There was actually a baby boomlet in the U.S.A. starting in the mid 1980s after the Baby Bust generation which began in 1965. Counter to all of the crapehanger's harangues I wonder if this (O.K. so along with the economic crash--what's new?) might also be part of the reason why there's been an uptick in the number of cadets in the last year in both the Central and Western territories after a few years with some very small sessions?
Also, with the Army's emphasis on Hispanic immigrant work in the U.S. in recent years (many of them still have very large families) I wonder if that's going to change things very soon?
Of course when all else fails, has anyone ever heard of evangelism?
Daryl Lach
USA Central
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