As they had done at his funeral at All Souls in July, the heavens laid on a beautiful sunny morning for John Stott’s memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday January 13th. The queue of 2200 people who attended. snaked back almost to the East End.
St Paul’s magnificent dome was a fitting canopy for a moving service which was designed by John Stott himself and Chris Wright, the director of the Langham Partnership. All Souls orchestra and gathered choir led the “stunning” music which included Beethoven, Handel, Sullivan and Elgar, beginning with the hymn by that proto- Evangelical Anglican Charles Wesley: “Jesus the name high over all”. However the slower pace of the rallantandos in the hymns lost the congregation and the expected climaxes were diminished in slight choral chaos.
For someone who at the start of his ministry was criticised by the Bishop of London for welcoming non-Anglicans to the Lord’s table, it was a remarkable tribute that the three senior clerics of the Church of England (Canterbury, York and London) were in attendance at his memorial service, leading the prayers and the giving the blessing. Who else would command such a turnout except the Royal Family?
Tributes were paid by his secretary for fifty years Francis Whitehead (of course), by newly retired Archbishop John Chew (Singapore) who spoke of John Stott’s visit to China in 1996 as a result of which many of his books are now published and distributed in China, and by Ruth Padilla DeBorst from Latin America. Bishop Robert Aboagye Mensah from Ghana said the African Church thanks God for John Stott: “Many Africa Langham scholars are serving in churches and seminaries and making a great impact in the world wide church outside the continent [ including of course Archbishop Sentamu of York himself a former Langham scholar]. The New Africa Bible Commentary by African Scholars and published for African church members and leading National Institutions are due to the visionary leadership of John Stott.”
Mark Greene, director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity founded by John Stott spoke of his passion for the transformative power of the gospel: “If Jesus is Lord no context is beyond his rule”. This was captured in John’s 1975 book “Christian Mission in the Modern World”. Greene noted that John Stott changed his preaching and his job to invest time deliberately in training and discipling lay people. He sought not only conversion, but the transformation of media, law and manufacturing. He met regularly with businessmen and graduates. “How many other leaders have ever taken the daily mission of lay Christians so seriously? [Long pause] He saw the mission potential of lay Christians who are not clergy.” Mark posed the challenge of the moral and directional crisis in our economy: “There are thousands of Christian individuals working in the City, far more than in the tents in the churchyard.” Yet, he asked, why is their impact so small?
Perhaps it is a further measure of his stature that no one occasion was sufficient to encompass John Stott’s contribution. There was great emphasis on biblical preaching but where was John’s focus on the filling by the Holy Spirit? A North American professor noted that mention should be made of his role in establishing the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion and the contribution it has made to orthodox leadership in the Communion. There are many in senior Anglican leadership around the world through the work of the EFAC Bursary scheme and national fellowships.
Facilitating and giving space to others, and, as Bishop Aboagye-Mensah noted “ability to know us by name …and treating each person with dignity and respect” marked John Stott’s leadership. Is that a clue to the vast turnout on Friday? This was not a fan club or supporters’ group. It was men and women from all over the UK and the world whose own service of Jesus had been personally inspired and enabled by what John had been: called, and chosen and faithful ( to use the preacher, Bishop Tim Dudley Smith’s triad) in doing by God. A question we might ponder is “What would we miss had John Stott not obeyed God’s call?” And is not that the key to any movement of God? Human relationships, respect and trust are the motor of a movement and cannot be replaced by statements, policy announcements or marketing.
Chris Sugden Church of England Newspaper