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The Sunflower

by J.John September 6, 2021

written by J.John

Cloudy, rainy, chilly days in the middle of our British summer do not warm the heart. Recently, on such a gloomy day, Killy and I were given some sunflowers. We immediately smiled, our spirits lifted, and since then I’ve been thinking a lot about sunflowers. Now don’t mock pondering plants! In 1 Kings 4:33 we read that King Solomon ‘spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls’ (NIV). (Incidentally, he couldn’t have spoken about sunflowers because they originated in South America and were only brought to Europe in the sixteenth century.) Jesus himself took the garden mustard plant and created a parable (Matthew 13:31–32) and in Luke 12:27 Jesus said, ‘Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these’ (NIV).

But sunflowers are especially appealing, and it didn’t take me long to think of four aspects of them that spoke to me.

First, sunflowers are cheerful. There’s something about that disc of brilliant primary colour yellow that lifts the spirits. Possibly it’s because sunflowers look like the sun – or at least every child’s drawing of the sun – and I suspect quite a few of us need sunlight to lift our spirits (certainly anybody with a Greek ancestry like me!). Indeed, I can quite understand why the depressive artist Vincent van Gogh was drawn to painting them. Of course, it’s not always easy being cheerful but we can choose to be cheerful, happy and optimistic instead of grumpy, gloomy, miserable and pessimistic. And I know which people I would rather spend time with: those who lift me up not those who bring me down.

Let us be sunflowers, not weeping willows!

Second, sunflowers are conspicuous. It’s not just the colour of sunflowers that makes them so striking; it’s the fact that they can easily be tall enough to tower over you. Most flowers you look down on; sunflowers you look up to. In fact if you grow sunflowers (as Killy and I are trying to do), you may end up not simply blessing your own garden but your neighbours’ too. I think there’s another lesson here: it’s all too easy to stay concealed. We may not reach the height that some sunflowers do but, short or tall, it’s important that we let our light shine. Remember: even short people can stand tall. Let’s learn from the sunflower to stand up and let what we stand for be seen.

Third, sunflowers are considerate. You may think of sunflowers as an ornament for a garden but of course they are a major crop plant. Sunflowers provide seeds for food and vitamins, oil for cooking, and I’m told you can even make insulation out of those enormous stalks. In thinking about the use of sunflowers, let’s remember it’s not only humans who benefit from them but birds and insects too. Sunflowers are not just bold and big; they are also a blessing. Let us be a blessing to others as well.

Finally, sunflowers centre on the sun. They have the remarkable ability – absent from most other plants – of being able to move. Their flowers and upper leaves track the sun, and when the sun sets in the evening they rotate their heads back to face the east to await the warmth of the morning sun’s rays. It’s clever stuff! Sunflowers soak up all of the sun’s rays for warmth and light. They depend on the sun to make their food so they can keep growing. But what about those cloudy days? Get this: sunflowers will turn and face another sunflower! Looking to each other for support until they can once again see the sun.

There’s a lesson here for us. We should be those who, at the start of the day, are found facing towards God the Son – Jesus – and who during the course of the day continue to keep our eyes fixed on him (Hebrews 12:2). And on those cloudy days look to each other for support and encouragement but remember, as St Francis of Assisi prayed, ‘In giving we receive.’

Rain or shine, may you be inspired by sunflowers and may we all continue to look at the Son.

‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’ (Hebrews 1:3 NIV)

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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September 6, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: Fanny Crosby

by J.John September 6, 2021

written by J.John

Fanny Crosby was a prolific hymnist, writing more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, and the most remarkable thing about her was that she did so in spite of her blindness.

Born in 1820 in rural south-east New York, Fanny lost her sight to an eye infection and medical ignorance at the age of six weeks.

Her blindness means that all the existing photographs show her with dark glasses and give the impression of a solemn, formal and very stern woman. The reality was very different: Fanny was an exuberant, warm and cheerful individual.

To be sightless in an age with little concern for the blind, without guide dogs and Braille books, was difficult. Nevertheless, Fanny was raised in a family determined to give her the best possible education and was read Bible passages. Fanny made an early commitment to follow Christ and developed a remarkable memory, learning whole books of the Bible by heart.

Fanny’s formal education did not begin until when, aged fifteen, she went to the New York Institute for the Blind, a pioneering institution where she was to spend twenty-three years: twelve as a student and eleven as a teacher. She developed her singing and learned to play a variety of instruments. The Institute also encouraged her to progress with her gift of composing poetry. An able speaker, Fanny campaigned for better education of the blind and, as part of this, became the first woman to speak in the United States Senate.

Fanny had always expressed her faith in poems and songs and she increasingly became sought after as a writer of Christian lyrics. Despite a growing reputation as a conference speaker and preacher, she remained deeply involved with her church. Ignoring her blindness and the fact she was under five foot tall, Fanny became involved in Christian social work amongst the poor of New York and even acted as a nurse during the devastating 1849 cholera epidemic.

In 1858 Fanny married Alexander van Alstyne, a blind church organist. They had one daughter who died shortly after birth: an event that may have prompted Fanny’s famous hymn ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus’. Fanny lived on to 1915, dying at the then remarkable age of ninety-four.

Fanny had an astonishing ability to write lyrics; she would compose them in her mind and then dictate them to be written down. She could work at incredible speed, sometimes creating seven songs a day. For thirty years she wrote songs for Ira Sankey, the singer who accompanied the evangelist D.L. Moody on his remarkable evangelistic campaigns, and many people made decisions for Christ as her words were sung. Many of Fanny’s hymns are still sung in church today. They include ‘Blessed Assurance’, ‘All the Way My Saviour Leads Me’, ‘Praise Him, Praise Him’, ‘To God Be the Glory’ and ‘Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross’.

Fanny wrote warm and memorable verses that appealed to both the mind and the heart. Consider just a few of her best-known lines:

‘All the way my Saviour leads me
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt his tender mercy,
Who through life has been my guide?’

‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long.’

Fanny’s theology was simple and Christ-centred. Significantly, in an America that was increasingly receiving immigrants with poor English, her words were both easy to understand and to translate. Her accessible songs revolutionised Christian music, opening the way to simpler, gentler songs and so, ultimately, to ‘gospel music’ and modern worship songs. In 1975 she was posthumously inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Fanny Crosby was a truly extraordinary woman and I find three challenges in her life.

First, she displayed a remarkable commitment to the gospel. Let’s face it, no one writes 8,000 songs without a very serious level of dedication! In her songs Fanny spoke not only of her own faith but also of her burning desire for others to come to Jesus. She claimed she wanted to introduce a million people to Christ through her songs: she may well have exceeded that number! Fanny showed her commitment not just in her words but in her social work. She did indeed give Jesus everything.

Second, she achieved a remarkable communication of the gospel. Evangelism is about communicating clearly, concisely and compassionately the good news of Jesus Christ, and in this Fanny Crosby was a remarkable communicator and evangelist.

Finally, she displayed a delightful contentment in the gospel. In a life of disability, difficulties and disappointments, Fanny didn’t just find comfort in Jesus Christ, she found contentment. Her first verse, written at age eight, echoed her lifelong refusal to feel sorry for herself:

‘Oh! what a happy soul I am!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.’

May we too live contented lives and exude joy in Christ despite disappointments and restrictions.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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September 6, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

by J.John June 27, 2021

written by J.John

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed for his long-standing opposition to Hitler, is one of the great Christian heroes of the twentieth century.

Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 to an aristocratic German family. Evidently gifted, he chose to study theology, graduating with a doctorate at the age of twenty-one. In the first of what were to be many international links he worked for two years with a German congregation in Barcelona. He then went to the United States to study for a year at a liberal theological college that he found shallow and uninspiring. He was, however, impressed by the African-American churches he worshipped at, appreciating the congregations’ zeal and sympathising with the social injustices they endured.

Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1931, lecturing and pastoring a church. Horrified by the rise of the Nazis he spoke out publicly against Hitler from the moment he became Chancellor in 1933. His was not a popular view: many German Christians, encouraged by Hitler’s manipulative use of Christian language, saw him as the nation’s saviour.

Bonhoeffer found himself part of the resistance against Nazism. He spoke against the persecution of the Jews and when Hitler demanded a church that swore loyalty to him, Bonhoeffer helped create the Confessing Church which declared that its head was Christ not the Führer. Bonhoeffer gained only limited support and, disillusioned, he went to pastor two German-speaking churches in London. There, watching with alarm the direction Germany was taking, he made important friendships with British church leaders.

Returning to Germany, Bonhoeffer was soon denounced as a pacifist and an enemy of the state. In 1937 he became involved in the secret training of pastors for the Confessing Church. He also wrote one of his most important books, The Cost of Discipleship, in which he rebuked shallow Christianity that he termed cheap grace: ‘the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession . . . Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.’ It is a warning that continues to be valid today.

With war looming, Bonhoeffer, committed to peace and refusing to swear allegiance to Hitler, realised that he could be executed. An opportunity to escape conscription appeared with an invitation to teach in the USA. Bonhoeffer left in June 1939, yet once in the States he realised that he could not be absent from his own country at a time of war and within two weeks took the boat back to Germany.

When war did break out, Bonhoeffer found himself drawn into the circle of those patriotic Germans who sought to overthrow Hitler. In order to escape conscription he joined the German military intelligence agency, a body which included many who were opposed to Hitler. On paper his task was to use his many international church links to advise the military, but in reality he used them to try to find support for the German resistance.

As the war went on Bonhoeffer found himself on the edges of various plots to assassinate Hitler. Increasingly aware of the horrors the Third Reich was unleashing, he found himself reluctantly concluding that the assassination of Hitler would be the lesser of evils.

In 1943 Bonhoeffer became engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer but shortly afterwards his role in helping Jews escape to Switzerland was uncovered by the Gestapo and he was arrested. At first he was able to write and receive visitors who supplied him with books and took away his writings; many of these were incorporated into another classic book, Letters and Papers from Prison.

In July 1944 Bonhoeffer’s imprisonment became more severe and he was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. The accounts we have of him at this time describe him as a man of peace, full of grace and kindness and occupied in pastoring and counselling those about him.

In the spring of 1945 Bonhoeffer’s name was linked with an old plot against Hitler and his execution ordered. He was hanged on 9th April 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. His last recorded words were, ‘This is the end – for me the beginning of life.’

I find at least four striking things in the faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

First, his faith was displayed in doing. Bonhoeffer could have stayed an academic theologian quietly writing. Instead, he insisted that Christianity had to be lived out and to be a disciple of Christ was to do something. Beliefs must have consequences: whether it was to work for good or against evil. Bonhoeffer was no armchair Christian and we shouldn’t be either.

Second, his faith was displayed in daring. One of the first German Christians to denounce Hitler, Bonhoeffer worked against Nazism for twelve years, knowing that at any moment he could be – as ultimately he was – arrested, imprisoned and killed. It’s particularly hard not to be impressed by how, having made the safety of New York in 1939, Bonhoeffer then took the boat back to Germany. We could do with a lot more daring today.

Third, his faith was displayed in defying. Faced with a threatening government and a church that remained silent, Bonhoeffer spoke out boldly against both. There are times when we, too, need to stand up and speak boldly.

Finally, and it’s uncomfortable, Bonhoeffer’s faith was displayed in dying. As he wrote in The Cost of Discipleship, ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ And with typical consistency that is exactly what Bonhoeffer did.

High above Westminster Abbey’s west door are statues of ten modern martyrs and there stands the figure of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He deserves that place.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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June 27, 2021 0 comment

Articles

Heroes of the Faith: Elisabeth Elliot

by J.John June 8, 2021

written by J.John

Elisabeth Elliot was born in 1926 in Brussels to missionary parents who soon relocated to the USA. There, at an early age, she made a personal profession of faith to follow Christ. Elisabeth soon felt God’s call to be a missionary. In 1944, with the intention of becoming a Bible translator, she enrolled at Wheaton College where she met Jim Elliot who had a similar calling for missions and with whom she had a long romance. After graduation Elisabeth trained as a Bible translator and in 1952 both she and Jim went independently to Ecuador to work as missionaries. Finally, in 1953 she and Jim married in Ecuador where, in 1955, their daughter Valerie was born.

A missionary challenge at the time was a totally unreached Amazonian tribe, then known as the Aucas but now known as the Waodani. Links with this tribe, deep in the rainforest, were almost non-existent and their language was unknown. The Waodani also had a fearsome reputation for violence. (Anthropological studies have revealed that they had the highest rates of homicide ever recorded in a human society.)

Drawn by the challenge of the Waodani, a group of five young American missionary men, including Jim Elliot, decided to try to reach them. After seemingly friendly initial encounters, in January 1956 they flew in only to be suddenly speared to death.

The murder of these five men had an enormous impact in the United States and worldwide. The press focused not just on the events and the ‘savage’ tribe involved but also on the survivors, notably Elisabeth and baby Valerie. Elisabeth left for the States with her daughter and there, in a matter of weeks, wrote the book Through Gates of Splendor. It became a bestseller not simply because of the dramatic events it recounted but because Elisabeth, gifted with both writing ability and deep insight, had produced a remarkably powerful book. In this and subsequent books, Elisabeth’s depiction of her husband Jim – with his inspiring quote, ‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose’ – gave the world a great example of missionary commitment.

Feeling called by God to witness to those who had killed her husband, Elisabeth returned to Ecuador with her daughter. Working amongst an adjacent tribe, she prayed for an opportunity to make contact with the Waodani. Finally, a Waodani woman appeared, allowing Elisabeth to begin to learn the language and, after being promised safety, Elisabeth, her three-year-old daughter and Rachel Saint (the sister of the murdered pilot) went to live with the Waodani. The world held its breath. The idea that Elisabeth, as a single mother, was taking her little daughter to live with the violent tribe that had killed her husband was stunning. No less shocking in the 1950s was the fact that it was a woman taking the initiative in reaching out to a murderous tribe.

For two years the women and Valerie lived with the Waodani. They were accepted and, learning the language, taught the basics of Christianity. They were able to display forgiveness to those men who had slain the men they had loved and their living demonstration of what forgiveness meant undermined the fatal Waodani culture of unending family vendettas.

Eventually Elisabeth left the Waodani and worked with another tribe until 1963. Leaving for the States, she then focused on writing and speaking. She taught not just about missions work but also about many aspects of Christian living. As the 1960s brought enormous cultural changes, she found herself commenting on the role of women, where this most courageous of women took a position against feminism.

In 1969 Elisabeth married again, to a professor of theology. Tragically, he died from cancer in 1973. A widow once more, Elisabeth continued her worldwide ministry, marrying for a third time in 1977 to a hospital chaplain. For thirteen years she hosted a daily Christian radio programme. With the new century it soon became apparent that Elisabeth was beginning to suffer from dementia and she gave up public speaking before finally dying in 2015.

Let me highlight three things that are striking in Elisabeth Elliot’s long life of faith.

First, her faith showed a deep obedience to God. Elisabeth saw Christianity as something that involved a discipleship of complete obedience to Christ. It was such a discipleship that compelled her to meet with her husband’s killers and forgive them. When asked to justify missionary work she simply pointed out that the church remained under the orders given by Christ. Elisabeth was convinced: to belong to Christ was to obey him.

Second, her faith was marked by a profound acceptance of God. Elisabeth grappled with the suffering she experienced; the death of two husbands, the murder of fellow workers and many other struggles. She rejected any attempt to find explanations for such events. Importantly, she taught that we must accept what we are given from God precisely because he is God. The path of obedience often leads through deep water: explanations can wait till heaven.

Finally, Elisabeth’s faith gave her a sturdy independence before the world. All Christian communication can either be comforting or challenging and what Elisabeth said and wrote was always the latter. Quite simply, she refused to give what people demanded. After Elisabeth went to the Waodani there was an expectation that she would confirm the view that they were appalling savages. Instead, she wrote compellingly of how the people she had come to love had both vices and virtues. Her concern to say what she felt God wanted her to say made her independent of all other pressures.

The faithful and fruitful life of Elisabeth Elliot sets a challenging example of discipleship to us today. She deserves to be remembered.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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June 8, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: John Newton

by J.John May 24, 2021

written by J.John

Few stories in Christian history are more dramatic than that of John Newton, whose life demonstrates the title of his most famous hymn, ‘Amazing Grace’.

Newton was born in London in 1725 to a seagoing father and a devout mother. He followed his father to sea at the age of eleven but rejected his mother’s faith, becoming a rebellious, reckless and immoral youngster. He had an ability to find trouble: rejecting good jobs, being fired after six sea voyages and, aged nineteen, press-ganged into the Royal Navy. He deserted, was caught and given a public flogging. Managing to leave the Navy, Newton became involved in the slave trade, shipping slaves from Africa to North America. It’s a sad fact that slavery – a profitable and in Britain largely invisible trade – then aroused little controversy. Newton, having made many enemies, found himself left behind in Africa by his colleagues and was there imprisoned in chains and treated brutally for eighteen months.

When Newton was rescued in 1748 he showed no signs of repentance. Nevertheless, as he sailed back to Britain his ship was struck by a severe storm. As the vessel began to sink Newton began to pray, throwing himself on the mercy of God. Somehow the ship was able to make it back safely to the British Isles. Although Newton later considered his prayer to mark the moment of his conversion he was to write, ‘I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards.’ However, change had started and Newton began to pray and to read the Bible.

In 1750 Newton married Polly Catlett, with whom he was to have forty years of happy, if childless, marriage. He returned to serve on slave ships, making three voyages as captain and seemingly ignoring any inconsistency between his trade and his faith.

At the age of twenty-nine, after ill health, Newton gave up seafaring and instead took a job in the port of Liverpool. There his Christian life started to blossom and he came under the influence of those great preachers of the Methodist revival, John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. Newton’s life changed and he became involved in evangelical fellowships and in organising Bible study. He sought ordination in the Church of England but for several years was rejected because of his lack of a degree and the suspicion that he had acquired Methodist ‘enthusiasm’.

Finally, aided by an influential supporter, Newton was ordained and became curate of Olney in Buckinghamshire. A lively, committed and caring pastor who taught the Bible and preached appealing and relevant sermons, he trebled the size of his congregation. He also wrote books that brought him to the attention of the wider public.

The poet and hymnwriter William Cowper moved to Olney and he and Newton became close friends, something that was to prove an enormous help to the depressive Cowper. Together, they set about writing hymns. Newton’s contribution included many hymns that remain popular including ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds’ and ‘Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken’. Although technically Cowper may have been the finer poet, Newton demonstrated a remarkable ability for using simple language.

After sixteen years of fruitful ministry in Olney, Newton moved to a City of London church in 1780. There, at the heart of the nation, he was able to be a powerful influencer, encouraging, counselling and promoting in every way, a vibrant evangelical Christianity. When the young and promising politician William Wilberforce became converted and was tempted to leave politics for the church, Newton encouraged him to stay in Parliament and ‘serve God where he was’.

By now the national mood was turning against slavery, and Newton, still grieved over his own involvement decades earlier, wrote a powerful pamphlet – ‘Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade’ – based on his own experiences. It circulated widely and was greatly used in helping Wilberforce in his ultimately successful campaign against the slave trade.

In his final years Newton became perhaps the senior statesman of the evangelical church in Britain, doing whatever he could to promote the gospel; supporting ministers across denominations and helping to found both the Church Missionary Society and the Bible Society. Newton died in 1807 aged eighty-two, after fifty years of service to Christ and just months after slavery was ended across the British Empire.

There are many things to challenge us in John Newton’s life but to me the most striking are those that arise out of his conversion. Let me offer you four thoughts.

First, we see the priority of conversion. The transformation of Newton from the messiest of lives to a gracious servant of God teaches the life-changing potential of an encounter with Christ. Ultimately, Christianity is not a matter of morality; it’s about Jesus changing lives.

Second, we see the principle of conversion. Newton’s story reminds us that while we cannot save ourselves, God can and does. In the words of ‘Amazing Grace’, Newton came to God as an undeserving ‘wretch’ who was ‘lost’ and ‘blind’ yet Christ saved him.

Third, we see the process of conversion. We all love stories of dramatic conversion with overnight changes of behaviour. They happen but so do seemingly protracted conversions like Newton’s. We need to be reminded that sometimes it may take a long time after the seed is planted for the flower of faith to blossom.

Finally, we see the product of conversion. Newton received abundant grace. But it’s important to note that, having received grace, he shared it with others. The rich grace God gave to Newton spilled over into many lives and into the world.

Among John Newton’s last recorded words were these: ‘My memory is nearly gone but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great saviour.’ Amen.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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May 24, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: Francis Schaeffer

by J.John May 20, 2021

written by J.John

In my early days as a Christian one of the most influential figures around was the theologian, philosopher, pastor and preacher Francis Schaeffer. I have always valued his books and regret that I didn’t spend time with him at L’Abri.

Born in Pennsylvania, USA in 1912, Schaeffer was the only child of working-class parents with no Christian faith. In his youth he became fascinated by the great questions of philosophy and, finding answers in the Bible, became a Christian at eighteen. After studying in a liberal arts college in Virginia, he enrolled in a theologically conservative seminary to train as a pastor. In 1935 he married Edith, the daughter of missionaries with Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission. She was to be an enormous support to Schaeffer and his ministry and together they were to have four children.

In his early years as a Presbyterian pastor, Schaeffer found himself focusing on defending a Christianity that took the Bible seriously against the increasingly liberal version. After the Second World War, Schaeffer’s denomination sent him to investigate the state of Christianity in Europe. He returned with an alarming account of how many European churches were slipping away from any confidence in the Bible as God’s word. One lasting influence of the trip came from Schaeffer’s many visits to art galleries and museums, something that deepened his lifelong love of western culture.

Soon the Schaeffers felt called by God to be missionaries in Europe and in 1948 moved to Switzerland where they began a ministry that focused on the defence of a biblical Christianity. In 1951 Schaeffer came to the realisation that his calling was to preach truth to those outside Christianity rather than wage theological warfare within it.

Soon the Schaeffers founded a community in the Swiss Alps which they called L’Abri, French for ‘the shelter’. Increasingly, young searching people would turn up and stay with the Schaeffers where Edith would look after them and Francis would listen to them and discuss life, philosophy and theology. One of Schaeffer’s strengths was his remarkable breadth of interest and he became known for how he could apply biblical wisdom to everything from modern art to contemporary philosophy.

L’Abri became more well-known and in the 1960s, that decade when everything was questioned and challenged, it acquired a special significance. Many who were hungry to find meaning and purpose or who had been disillusioned by the hippy scene found their way there. There were conversions but perhaps of equal importance, many Christians saw broken faith mended and shallow faith deepened as they stayed with the Schaeffers. For many people L’Abri was indeed a shelter from the storm.

Increasingly, as Schaeffer’s talks were printed and circulated, he became a global figure and began an important itinerant ministry which made a remarkable impact. Christian audiences found themselves faced by a man dressed like a Swiss farmer, with knee breeches and hiking shoes, a white beard and long hair, confidently applying biblical Christianity to the confusing world about them. Whether it was pop music, avant-garde cinema or liberal theology, Schaeffer always had something helpful and insightful to say. He was a man who was simultaneously radical, challenging and inspiring.

In 1978 Schaeffer was diagnosed with cancer, dying from it in 1984.

Francis Schaeffer left a rich legacy. The work of L’Abri continues in different ways across the world. Most of Schaeffer’s books remain in print and many of them are still relevant. Schaeffer could see the big picture. His solemn warning that the West’s departure from its Christian foundations would take it into a perilous moral vacuum has sadly been fulfilled. Schaeffer also had a tremendous influence on individuals and many people, including some distinguished academics, view him as their spiritual and intellectual father.

Schaeffer was the right man at the right time, wisely guiding the global church through an upheaval of cultural change. Faced with new and challenging questions many believers were enormously reassured by the fact that, even if they didn’t have the answers (or sometimes even understand the questions), Francis Schaeffer did.

As an evangelist, Francis Schaeffer is a hero of mine for various reasons. Let me list three.

First, Schaeffer cared about the world. In difficult times it’s always tempting to go into defensive mode and hide behind thick walls. Sadly that hinders evangelism because you don’t actually meet anybody there with whom you can share the gospel. With his love of art and culture Schaeffer didn’t retreat from the world but sought to apply God’s truth to it.

Second, Schaeffer cared about truth. He often spoke of ‘true truth’. Yet it holds an important idea; the fact that at a time when there are many claims to ‘truth’ only Christianity is fundamentally and genuinely true. It’s vital in evangelism: we ask people to accept the gospel not because it can make a difference but because it is ultimately true.

Third, Schaeffer cared about people. He could have become a hermit, grappling with ideas in comfort and safety from his Swiss mountain retreat. But he didn’t. He and Edith sacrificially opened their house to the world and without judgement cared for those who came to them. Schaeffer softened the sharpness of truth with the sweetness of compassion.

Francis Schaeffer cared about the world, he cared about truth, he cared about people. Do we?

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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May 20, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Europe – A Soil Now Ready for Sowing?

by J.John May 10, 2021

written by J.John

Despite its popular title, Jesus’ parable of ‘The Sower’ implies that fruitful evangelism depends not so much on the one who sows the seed but on the soil it lands on. My experience as an evangelist confirms this: the fruits of preaching seem to depend on place as much as proclamation. And in terms of hard soil for the gospel, Western Europe has long been seen as a region where sown seeds of faith fail to take root.

Happily, I sense things are changing. At least locally, Europe’s hard ground seems to be breaking up with a new receptivity for the gospel. Personally, I can testify to a growing interest in the Good News. In recent years, we’ve had a million people attending my Ten Commandments mission series and had evangelistic events filling the largest venues available. Reduced to a virtual presence by Covid, I found myself with so many invitations for Easter Day 2021 that I ended up preaching virtually at 747 churches and at 120 prisons. And it’s not just me. A remarkable work of the Spirit is occurring amongst Europe’s Iranian migrants and refugees to the extent that, in Britain at least, many churches have one or two families of converts. Across the continent God is working amongst the 12 million Roma or gypsy peoples so that as many as a third are now Pentecostal Christians. And in France – modern atheism’s birthplace – evangelicals have gone from 50,000 to over 700,000 in a lifetime. Spiritual soil in Europe is more promising for the gospel than for generations, perhaps centuries.

What’s going on? Ultimately, of course, this is a work of God’s Spirit and I’m grateful for that. Yet I believe that a big part of what’s happening is that secularism – the ‘religion of non-religion’ – which hardened the continent against the gospel from the French Revolution onwards, is crumbling as people are increasingly disillusioned by its failure as a belief to live by.

Why has secularism failed? I think it’s because it has been found to be inadequate for our heads, lives and hearts: what we think, what we do and what we feel.

Take how we think. Here secularism has shown a failure of explanation. Everybody wants to know why things are the way that they are and there is a demand for some ‘big story’ that gives meaning to existence. Secularism promised that it would replace the ‘inadequate’ and ‘childish’ explanations of religion with better ones based on science. Yet while we have seen enormous technological progress, science has failed to answer the big questions of existence. Life, consciousness and even the universe itself remain mysteries. Thinking people are finding secularism barren and unsatisfactory. In contrast, the gospel holds out the richest and most meaningful of answers: we are made by God, loved by him and, if we choose, eternally redeemed by him.

If secularism has been inadequate for how we think, it has been even more so for how we live and here I find three failures. First, it has displayed a failure of ethics. This is of course inevitable: you can’t get a meaningful morality out of a meaningless universe. The results are troubling. As individuals, men and women are left with no guidance on how to live. As societies we are seeing many problems. Politics, set free from God-given rules, is becoming an amoral game of winner-takes-all in which the weak are crushed. Equally unchecked by morality, the brutal and simplistic certainties of nationalism and racism are flourishing in the vacuum left by secularism. Secularism’s rejection of moral absolutes has also led to a more subtle but no less frightening threat: an aggressive culture of ‘wokeness’ with zealous inquisitors anxious to punish anyone who does not conform to political correctness. In contrast, the gospel not only sets out the solid ground of right and wrong but proclaims a just, gracious and loving God who seeks to save the lost.

Second, secularism has shown a failure of expectation. It is a gloomy creed devoid of purpose and hope, and offers no guidance on goals and ambitions. What are we to live for? The answer is silence. Secularism offers no more than wishful thinking, either for lives shadowed by the grave or a world haunted by threats. In contrast, the gospel offers true hope for this life and the next.

Third, with secularism there has been what could be called a failure of empowerment. Many people feel that their existence is dominated by unseen forces, whether fate, chance or spiritual powers. Against such oppression, secularism is helpless. The gospel, however, is not: Jesus is Lord over all powers. The breakthroughs with the Roma communities have occurred because in Christ they found a power which could liberate them from enslavement by other forces.

Secularism has failed minds and lives but also hearts, where it has shown a failure of excitement. No one sings songs, flies banners or holds festivals about secularism. It is the dullest, driest and depressing of beliefs. Yet, in glorious contrast, the gospel joyfully holds out to everybody God’s love, peace and hope.

Secularism has failed and across Europe the baked, dry soil it has produced is crumbling. We have a receptive time for sowing. But what seeds are to be sown? After all, there are other sowers walking the fields, seeking to plant New Age mysticism and other faiths. Yet the only creed that offers truly satisfactory answers to the challenges of life, death and eternity is an authentic Christianity.

Here in Europe we live in interesting days. We Greeks – to whom European culture is in permanent debt – have a word for such a time. It is a kairos moment: a time of favour and opportunity that requires action. Let’s take it, for Christ’s Kingdom!

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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May 10, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: John Stott

by J.John April 27, 2021

written by J.John

April 27th sees the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great Christian leader John Stott, a man who helped and encouraged so many people across the world, including me.

John Stott was born in 1921 in London. He was naturally gifted, possessing a brilliant mind, an amazing memory and an extraordinary self-discipline. John was brought to a living faith in Christ at public school through the preaching of Eric Nash, and applied himself to his new faith with great commitment. At Cambridge, where he studied modern languages, John became deeply involved with the Christian Union. He trained as an Anglican minister before becoming a curate at All Souls Langham Place, London, the church he had attended as a child. Throughout his ministry John remained based at All Souls: he spent thirty years there as curate and rector and then for over thirty years was based there as a writer, preacher and leader. John’s passion for evangelism transformed All Souls and it became a focus for evangelical ministry in London and beyond. One notable emphasis of John’s preaching from the start was the way that he didn’t simply preach the historic gospel but also the need for Christians to apply it in their daily lives.

John had many talents and his ministry and influence soon spread beyond central London. Always having a strong interest in student evangelism John preached at university missions across the world for a quarter of a century. He wrote extensively, producing Bible commentaries, practical guides to Christian living and also important texts on how Christians should relate to the world. He wrote over fifty books and many articles, all distinguished by his scholarship, precise language, a solid biblical basis and a contemporary application. His books were translated into many languages, the profits from which were used to support theological education across the world. Three books in particular have proved to be of enormous impact: Basic Christianity, which has led many to faith, The Cross of Christ on the atonement – one of my favourites – and Issues Facing Christians Today which encourages Christians to engage effectively with the world they live in.

With time John became a national and international Christian statesman with a powerful if gracious influence. In his own Anglican church he played a major role in turning evangelicalism from being a minority belief to a mainstream element. Internationally, he planned meetings and chaired committees including those for the important Lausanne Covenant (1974). Either by quiet counsel or open support John was involved with an extraordinary range of evangelical initiatives such as the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, the conservation organisation A Rocha, Tearfund, the Evangelical Literature Trust and many others.

John’s ministry was truly global: he visited over a hundred countries speaking, preaching and encouraging and, where possible, taking the opportunity for one of his pleasures – birdwatching. He continued with his international ministry well into his eighties until, with his health fading, he retired from ministry. He died in 2011 at the age of ninety.

John was able to do so much and was helped by his own astonishing self-discipline, by Frances Whitehead (his formidable and protective secretary) and by his purchase of a rundown cliff-edge cottage in Wales – The Hookses – where he could retreat, pray and write in peace. He also saw his singleness as something that freed him to serve the church more fully.

I was privileged to meet with ‘Uncle John’ on many occasions. I was particularly encouraged when, still finding my feet as an evangelist, he invited me to tea, supported what I was doing and encouraged me to deepen my knowledge of God through Bible reading and prayer. One cherished memory is how, whenever I met him, he would give me a characteristic hug, gaze at me with his blue eyes and ask, ‘Brother John, are you still preaching the gospel?’ to which he would inevitably add, ‘This is the one thing you must do!’

One of the fascinating and challenging things about John was the way that he balanced things that could have easily been opposites.

So although John was extraordinarily self-disciplined he was also gentle. He would rise early – 5 or 6 a.m. – and devote himself to prayer and Bible reading. He seemed to live life with a remarkable efficiency and never seemed to waste time. Yet there was never any sense of him being any sort of driven individual whose projects demand priority; with John you always felt that people came first.

Equally, although John was an authority, he was also humble. He was one of the very few Christian leaders to be known and respected globally: Time magazine labelled him as one of its ‘100 Most Influential People’ in 2005. Yet you never felt any sense of superiority or self-importance with John: he listened graciously to other views and always seemed to have time for people. He lived humbly too; it’s fascinating that the only property he ever owned was that tiny cottage in Pembrokeshire. With John, the idea of being a servant of others was no cliché but the truth.

Finally, although John was a deeply spiritual man, he was also utterly relevant. He was a man who let prayer and Bible reading shape everything he said, did and was. Yet there was no sense of him being any sort of religious mystic, too holy to deal with the mess of the world. With John there was always this desire to be involved: he was a man who wanted to change the world for God.

John Stott was a remarkable man. Like many people, I look around at the Christian world today and wish that we had his wisdom and authority to guide us. But as I think that, I can hear John’s voice in gentle rebuke, reminding me that the hope of Christ’s church lies not in its leaders, but in Christ himself.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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April 27, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: John Paton

by J.John April 19, 2021

written by J.John

John Paton was born in 1824 in Scotland, the eldest of eleven children in a poor but devout Christian family. When he was twelve, he had come to a personal faith and committed himself to being a missionary. As a young man Paton moved to Glasgow; there he undertook theological and medical studies, was ordained in the Presbyterian Church and worked for ten years as an evangelist. He then felt called to what was then the New Hebrides, a long island in the south-west Pacific that is now part of Vanuatu and where heroic mission work had been undertaken for some time.

In 1858 Paton sailed for the South Seas, taking with him his bride Mary. What they found when they landed on the island of Tanna horrified them. Poverty and ill-health, brutal clan battles, cannibalism, infanticide and the sacrifice of widows was practised. Brutality against women was so common that old women were rare. In addition, there was an atmosphere of spiritual fear due to the widespread belief in evil spirits and the practice of witchcraft.

Three months after his landing Paton was struck by a double disaster, losing both his wife Mary and his new-born son to disease. In his grief he found himself alone, struggling with a language that had never been written down and under the constant threat of violence from the islanders. Despite being encouraged to return home, Paton continued to serve for four years under difficult circumstances in which he saw very little fruit.

When in 1862 large-scale tribal warfare broke out, Paton was forced to leave. He then developed a new role as someone who mobilised the church for mission. For four years Paton travelled around Australia and Scotland talking about the needs of mission. He was an inspiring speaker, telling personal stories and speaking with a challenging authority about the need for personnel and financial support for ministry on the islands.

In 1864 Paton married again and with his new wife, Margaret, returned to the New Hebrides, this time to the island of Aniwa. There they were to labour for decades and to have ten children, four of whom sadly died in infancy. They learnt the local language, wrote it down and translated and printed a New Testament for the islanders. The Patons were also very much involved in practical help: educating, creating employment and starting medical and social care. The impact of both preaching and practising the gospel was remarkable; within two decades the entire island had become practising Christians.

In 1881 ill health forced Paton to give up being resident at Aniwa and he became one of the very first worldwide missions speakers, travelling through Europe, Australia and the United States. His influence was helped by his dramatic autobiography and the nickname given him by the influential preacher C.H. Spurgeon as ‘the king of the cannibals’. In his addresses, though, Paton was careful not simply to talk about his own adventures and sufferings but also to tell stories of how violent men had, after turning to Christ, been transformed into gentle human beings.

Paton made three worldwide tours and became involved in political action for the New Hebrides, in particular campaigning against slavery which trapped men from the islands. In between his voyages around the world, he returned to the islands and in 1899 was able to give the Aniwans their complete New Testament. With advancing frailty, Paton and his wife retired to Australia, where Margaret died in 1905 and he followed two years later.

Clearly John Paton was a man of outstanding faith but what I find challenging is how that faith was worked out.

Paton’s faith gave him courage. He faced extraordinary opposition and in his early years as a missionary had to live with death, loneliness, illness and a constant threat of violence. In particular, after the loss of his first wife and child no one would have blamed him for returning to Britain. Yet he stayed at his post.

Paton’s faith gave him confidence. The almost immediate death of his wife and child on Tanna and the seeming failure of his attempts to change a hostile culture for Christ must have seemed strong evidence that he’d been mistaken about God and his calling. Yet Paton persisted through discouragements, believing that God had not only called him but was in control. As Paton was to declare when a precious mission ship was wrecked, ‘My blessed Lord Jesus makes no mistakes!’

Finally, Paton’s faith was demonstrated in commitment. First, he was a man committed to the gospel. It would have been both easy and understandable for Paton to compromise in his preaching by accepting some of the tribal practices or superstitions. Yet he remained loyal to the historic gospel. He was also committed to his people. Despite living at a time in which many educated individuals considered the peoples of the South Pacific and Australia as subhuman savages incapable of civilisation and destined for extinction or slavery, Paton cared for and valued the islanders. Believing that social reform went hand in hand with the gospel, he and his wife taught the islanders reading and crafts, built orphanages, had schools erected and dispensed medicine. They battled, too, against those outsiders who sought to exploit the islanders by selling weapons and alcohol.

Although our world is changed from that in which Paton lived, God has not changed. Paton wrote, ‘God gave his best, his Son, to me; and I give back my best, my all, to him.’

May we also give back our best, our all to God today.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

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April 19, 2021 0 comment

Faith

Heroes of the Faith: Amanda Smith

by J.John April 12, 2021

written by J.John

The life of Amanda Smith was extraordinary: she travelled from being a black slave to becoming the first international woman evangelist.

Amanda was born in 1837 in the American state of Maryland, the first of 13 children. Her parents were slaves and she became one too. Despite the poverty of her upbringing Amanda grew up surrounded by prayer and Bible reading and was taught to read and write by her parents. Through hard work, her father managed to buy freedom, first for himself and then for his family.

Although free, Amanda still suffered discrimination and was to have a very limited education. She became a maid at 13 and was to work as a domestic help until her mid-thirties. She married at the age of 17 and had two children, only one of whom survived into adulthood. Her husband died in the Civil War.

In her early twenties Amanda felt that God had miraculously cured her of a serious illness for a purpose. Shortly afterwards she had a transforming conversion experience. Now a single mother, she married again but sadly her husband, who had misled her over his spiritual ambitions, deserted her. Amanda was left in poverty with three more children, all of whom were to die in infancy.

Increasingly, Amanda became involved in Methodist church circles and became a well-known evangelist, bringing people to trust in Christ, in churches (whether black or white), and at Christian meetings. She was a powerful speaker: nearly six-foot tall with a rich voice, a remarkable singing gift and an exuberant, dynamic and spontaneous manner. Amanda was a preacher who made an impact; where she spoke people were converted, overcome with repentance or touched with a sense of God’s presence.

In 1869, after the death of her last son and her second husband, Amanda felt called to be a full-time missionary. As a freed black slave, a mere ‘washerwoman’ as she was often described, and without education or formal training, she could not obtain any sort of official church position. Instead, for the remainder of her life Amanda was to live by faith, sustained by gifts. She certainly acted by faith, rarely planning anything but instead praying over everything and relying on God to guide her.

Amanda began preaching at special events – ‘camp meetings’ – where large numbers of people gathered for days of church services with an emphasis on conversion and holiness. In 1878 she was invited to cross the Atlantic to speak at the Keswick Convention in England. She soon became a popular speaker at revival meetings throughout Britain. She drew crowds because her preaching reached hearts.

Amanda was invited to go to India, where for 18 months she had considerable success in revival meetings. Instead of returning to the United States, she felt led to visit Africa and spent eight years evangelising and setting up schools and missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

When she finally returned to the United States Amanda wrote a long account of her life, with an honest account of her spiritual journey but also an eyewitness account of the problems of racism and sexism faced by a black woman in the nineteenth century.

From 1892 onwards Amanda focused her efforts on helping her own African-American community, in particular by establishing and running an orphanage in Illinois. In her last years, with her health failing, she moved to Florida where she died in 1915 at the age of 78.

Amanda Smith came from the most unpromising background to be extraordinarily used by God for forty years in evangelism and revival across four continents. Her success was due to God’s gifting of her, but she played her part by allowing God to work in her life. Three things strike me about Amanda’s life.

First, she depended upon God. Amanda was a poor woman with limited education working against widespread racial prejudice. Yet those very limitations forced her to rely on God and on his strength. The life of Amanda Smith is a reminder that God does most through those who count themselves least.

Second, she had a desire for God. The nineteenth-century emphasis and enthusiasm for ‘holiness teaching’ is unfashionable today. Amanda made it her priority to seek God and to reflect that knowledge and experience of him in her life. It’s a good priority to make our own.

Third, she demonstrated the grace of God. Amanda was a woman who suffered. She lost four of her five children, lived a life of poverty and was frequently considered a second-class citizen. Yet hers was a life of remarkable graciousness. She never demanded her rights, accused others or complained about the racism she endured. Although she rarely raised discrimination in public – she did an enormous amount of good by building bridges and demolishing barriers between black and white communities.

Amanda Smith achieved much for God in her generation. She sets an example for us in ours.