No one else shaped the way Sydney Anglicans preach today as much as John Stott. Will his legacy continue in the next generation of preachers?
Michael Jensen’s wonderful tribute to Stott on the ABC website recounts the effect of Stott’s preaching on John Chapman:
When Stott came to Sydney in 1958 for a mission at Sydney University, he left a lasting impact. Local evangelist and preacher John Chapman apparently went home and tore up all his sermon notes! Having heard what Stott did in the pulpit, there was simply no going back to the old method of pious reflection.
Stott’s preaching changed the way a generation preached. As the Archbishop wrote here on sydneyanglicans.net:
The biblical preaching of my youth would start characteristically from a verse, sometimes taken out of context and used as a starting point for an extended Christian homily with exhortation. Our first hand experience of John Stott was different. He took passages rather than texts and gave rigorous attention to the context and the meaning of the passage taken as a whole.
Stott’s model became the new normal.
I was struck by this afresh last Sunday hearing one of our student ministers preached. Opening up Mark 4 the outline of the sermon clearly followed the structure of the chapter. The dominant thought of the chapter - the importance of hearing the word of God - was the dominant point of the sermon. The chapter was placed in the context of the book. The aim was simplicity. The careful application flowed from the understanding of the passage and was the fruit of much hard work. I’m not sure if he knew he was following Stott’s model. I know though that those who heard it were helped to read the scriptures for themselves. Together we sat under the word of God.
In "Between Two Worlds: The challenge of preaching today" Stott writes about the need for the preacher to be a man of the Bible and the newspaper, understanding both the Word and the world it is spoken into. This was not so that the preacher appeared clever, but so that he could think and live more Christianly. This book also spells out Stott’s theological conviction that true preaching can only be empowered by the Spirit.
The beauty of preaching like this is that the preacher disappears from view. The sermon is not about him. Nor will it be about how clever or funny or heart warming he is. This is tremendously liberating and puts our confidence where it should be - in the powerful life giving Word of God doing its work.
Being servants of the word will mean preaching a radical gospel that some will hate. When John Stott retired from public ministry John Shelby Spong wrote:
John Stott’s Christianity and the fundamentalist, evangelical tradition he espouses will finally do nothing except justify the human divisions between the saved and the unsaved. That religious stance will ultimately victimize every person who does not reside inside the definition of the Bible as “revealed truth,” as Stott interprets it.So John Stott has decided to retire. What he needs to recognize is that all of his major ideas have also retired long before him. Perhaps they will now be happy together.
Will Stott’s legacy shape the next generation of preachers? I’m not sure. I know that many are restlessly listening to other voices. I know that Stott is no longer cited as the formative figure he once was. I wonder though if in the rush to download the latest preacher we fail to recognise the treasure God gave us in John Stott.
John Stott memorial service Friday 5th August, 1.30 pm St Andrew's Cathedral
