| By Aggrey Mugisha,
:: 08-08-2011
|
 
John Robert Walmsley Stott, that renowned author, scholar and global pastor passed away on the 27th July.
Born to Sir Arnold (a medical doctor) and Emily Stott in London in 1921, Stott grew up
in London where he later became a global church leader whose influence reached Uganda as well.
John Stott’s contribution to the Church among others is what he called “double listening.” By that phrase he meant listening to God’s broken world and also listening to God’s word, the Bible.
He believed that the Bible speaks today. While addressing a group of 700 students in Manchester, 1983, he said,
“The Christianity of the Bible is not a safe, smug, escapist little religion into which so many of us try to degrade it.”
Earlier in 1938, Stott had gone through a conversion experience through the ministry of Eric Nash. In reference to how he came to Christ, Stott wrote,
“As a typical adolescent, I was aware of two things about myself, though doubtless I could not have articulated them in these terms then. First, if there was a God, I was estranged from him. I tried to find him, but he seemed to be enveloped in a fog I could not penetrate. Secondly, I was defeated.
“I knew the kind of person I was, and also the kind of person I longed to be. Between the ideal and the reality there was a great gulf fixed. I had high ideals but a weak will. . . . What brought me to Christ was this sense of defeat and of estrangement, and the astonishing news that the historic Christ offered to meet the very needs of which I was conscious.”
A graduate of the prestigious Cambridge University, in 1945 Stott was ordained and became Curate and later Rector of All Souls Church in Buckingham, London. He remained rector at All Souls until 1975. Stott was an international speaker at big Christian gatherings, one of them being the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation, where he helped craft the Lausanne Covenant, in 1974. Commenting on his life, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said, “John Stott’s contribution to developing a balanced evangelical faith… is probably without parallel in our generation.
“From his pen and his preaching has come a clarion call to us to sit under the Scriptures and to obey their teaching.”
Some 50 books are known to have come from that pen: One best seller (over one million copies) is Basic Christianity.
Medard Rugyendo who is dean of the Faculty of Arts and Education at Uganda Christian University on learning about the death of Stott commented, “Many of us were nurtured through his books. We also use them in our courses at this university.”
Stott’s link to Uganda included a 1999 visit to deliver the Bishop Festo Kivengere Memorial Lecture that was held at the Sheraton Hotel on the value of democracy in the governance of society.
Some of the other ministries close to John Stott’s heart were the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), Scripture Union, TEAR Fund, the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC), and his own organisation, the Langham Partnership. He may be gone but his legacy will live on.
Among Stott’s many Ugandan friends is retired headmaster of King’s College Budo, Dan Kyanda. In 1973, on learning that Stott would be the chief missioner at the Makerere University’s mission, Kyanda invited him to speak to the community at Budo. Kyanda says, “Stott was a great friend of Africa. He never despised anyone.”
He lived a celibate life. But he nurtured, mentored so many of people through the global Christian church. That’s why many will remember Uncle John.
Zac Niringiye, assistant bishop of the Church of Uganda Kampala Diocese, a long -time friend of Stott, says, “He was my mentor, someone who impacted my own pilgrimage and supported my path of theological reflection. He had a passion for God and compassion for God’s people. ”
The Langham Partnership continues to support the training of preachers in Uganda. Some UCU scholars like Associate Professor of the New Testament Edson Kalengyo and Canon Alfred Olwa currently a PhD student in Australia. have benefitted from the Langham Scholarship that John Stott started.
As his health continued to weaken, Stott retired from public ministry in April 2007 but continued writing until 2010. A BBC report referred to John Stott as someone who could explain complex theology in a way people could easily understand.
Stott spent his favourite relaxing time watching birds. While here in 1999 he took time off to see the birds in Queen Elizabeth National Park. He saw more than 400 species there.
In listening to John Stott, one learned there was the global God, who had revealed himself through the Bible and in the work of Jesus Christ was doing something about the complex world in which we live. And that through the church God was building a new society.
Chris Wright the international director of the Langham Partnership a ministry of John Stott remarked, “It will not be possible to write the history of the church in the 20th century without reference to John Stott. His remarkable ministry spanned the whole of the second half of the century and even in his eighties he was making an impact on the 21st.”
“There will be a memorial service at All Saints Cathedral on 21st August at 6pm to remember Uncle John’s life,” Niringiye says. |
Uganda Christian University's community newspaper
Me & My God 
:: Uganda Christian University 2008