Where are they going?

To interrupt JHW and answer the query raised by the last post about my books. Well, it's mostly about where my books have gone. A substantial part of my library was left in the US - particularly the  large academic collection extended while teaching there.  Returning to the UK, another very substantial part of my library went to a seminary in India.  I was left with a strange mixture of old theological classics, biographies and those collections of sermons which did not have an immediate appeal.

So I have collections still of  Beecher, Boreham, Brookes, Fosdick, Gossip, Inge, Morrison, Parker (actually an almost complete set of his NT sermon commentary), Shepherd, Stewart, Thielicke, Watson. This isn't a complete list but it gives a good idea of the kind of stuff!

I still have some Spurgeon volumes that I want to go to a good  home!

If this stirs up any interest - please let me know!

Saying Farewell - JHW

 I have mentioned before my highly unfashionable hobby of collecting books of sermons. Preachers, who a few decades ago, drew crowds into disciples, built communities and impacted culture were prolific suppliers of these books.  Because these make for unfashionable reading now, over many years I picked tens of them up in second-hand book shops, often for a few pence each volume. Some sets of volumes have gone to libraries, but I am now left with a considerable number of elderly books destined for recycling. However, before I say sad farewells I thought they deserved some parting attention. 

As with John H Jowett (1863-1923) an English preacher hugely significant in his day with concluding ministries in New York and Westminster Chapel England. You realize how different the world was back then. When he died, the King sent condolences to Jowett's widow.  The browning volume I am saying farewell to is a compilation of the The Best of John Jowett. His sermons remain immensely readable, conversationally delivered with clear organization and key themes running through like the Gospel as comfort, his empathy for those who are suffering (he suffered poor health himself) and above all his conviction of the Gospel as Good News. Let me dip into a couple of sections before I let him go.

In his sermon on The Sufferings of Christ he tackles a much overlooked verse (2 Cor 1:5) 'For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ.'  Let me edit two complementary sections : First a challenge about the dangers of avoiding  suffering.

It is possible to evade a multitude of sorrows by the cultivation of an insignificant life. Shed ambitions in every direction, cut the wings of every soaring purpose, assiduously cultivate a little life. By this means a whole continent of afflictions will be escaped and will remain unknown. Cultivate negations and large tracts of the universe will cease to exist. Cultivate deafness and you are saved from the horrors of discords. Cultivate blindness, and you are saved from the assault of the ugly. Stupefy a sense and you shut out a world...reduce yourself to the smallest compass. And indeed, that is why so many people, and even so many professedly Christian people, get through life so easily...because they have reduced their souls to a minimum. They have cut the sensitive wires which bind the individual to the race, and they are cosily self-contained, and the shuddering sorrow of the world never disturbs their seclusion. . Tiny souls can dodge through life; bigger souls are blocked on every side.

I turn the matter round. I have already said that if we lessened our lives we should lessen our sorrows. It is now needful to add that if we lessen our lives we also lessen our joys. Deaden the sense of hearing and you escape the discords, but you also lose the harmonies. Drug your artistic sense, and you lose the pain of the ugly, but you also lose the inspiration of the lovely. If by the enlargement of my life I let in human sorrow I also let in divine consolation. A big, holy purpose makes me more sensitive towards the sin and hostility of man, but is also makes me more sensitive towards God. If we suffer with Christ, Christ Himself becomes a great reality. When life is a picnic we play with theology...when we suffer with Christ we come to know Christ, to come face to face with reality, and the idle superfluities drop away. Our fellowship in His battles makes us receptive of His peace: 'My peace I give to you.' There is no surer way of becoming sure of Christ than to follow the way of sacrificial life and service.

Some of us know life is not a picnic! But what a challenge: Enlarging my life to let in human sorrow opens up divine consolation. That's stayed with me ever since I first read it.  I don't want to lead an insignificant life and miss out on God's  big holy purpose. Worth pondering, yes? 

A portrait saga

Spurgeon's College hung pictures of past Principals in the main building. In my time they were positioned along an upper corridor, staring down at you.  All painted in oils, one or two really captured their subjects' expression, all dressed in academic robes often set against an impressive background of packed book-shelves.  When the time came for me to leave, the last thing I thought about was my portrait. Actually nobody thought about it. There was no budget nor encouraging discussion. 

It is a strange thing to think about. Pause to ponder how you would like to be portrayed in oils.  Oddly egoistic isn't it? I guess it tests your level of narcissism.  Of course I have some ego but my commitment to push the issue was low.  Crossing the Atlantic to begin a new teaching job near Chicago, meant energy for pursuing this portrait was pushed off the back-burner, stuck firmly behind the stove. But then my successor resurrected the issue and suggested that the era of oils was over. Why not have a photograph instead?  He said he would have his taken as he began his tenure, capturing more youthful looks!  Being Principal can certainly age you.

To play my part in the US I asked a photographer friend to take my portrait. Kindly he agreed and in his studio he snapped me in academic robe against a plain background.  The smallish photo he presented me seemed to do the trick. A year or two later I saw the outcome hanging at Spurgeon's.  Enlarged to fill a frame, approximately sized to accompany earlier oil portraits, it showed a bland standing figure not unlike a full-size passport photo or bus pass.  Too late to think of insisting on a more distinctive head and shoulders portrait in an impressive setting. Too late. 

Why bring this subject up?  Well, in the tragic closure of Spurgeon's College, every item was put in a catalogue for an auction, including the portraits.  I was given the address to send a closed bid for mine! Can you guess my response?  Yes, inaction. The auction came and went and my portrait along with other unsold items was pushed into a side room ready for the skip. And there the story would have finished, except that one of my later successors returned to collect his portrait from this junk room and saw my picture languishing. He asked whether he could take that one too and permission was easily given. Then he emailed me and said could be bring it when he was driving past my house.  Would you believe it? Door-to-door service of something I assumed was dead and buried. He came last week. I really enjoyed seeing him again and having my bland picture reminding me of its saga.

I've attached this poor photograph - strangely, being on its own it doesn't seem such a disappointment and I do look young and I'm smiling! 

 

Stage 5

To round off this little reflection piece: 

You can imagine, as Principal, the Bible remained central to teaching and preaching. I am not sure how to describe Stage 5 (that I am still in). Perhaps it began when I was asked to preach at the International Congress of Preaching in Westminster Chapel, London. I was also asked to speak to a seminar on ‘How I prepare to preach each week’.  I realized that I had never described how I set about listening to Scripture in order to deliver a sermon.  Honestly, what did I actually do?  What had become my habit?  Fully aware of the need to be truthful I constructed for the first time the pattern.  

It began: Prayerfully read the Bible aloud.  Spending quality time with the Bible expects the Lord to speak to us.  Time, patience and prayer, immersing in the text as though you have never heard it before. Just the Bible and you - for you and your listeners! Yes, commentaries are necessary to investigate and check but not at first.

I look back on this occasion as the beginning of my passionate engagement to teach other preachers about preaching. To make a long story short, this blossomed into my next role as C.W. Koller Professor of Preaching at Northern Seminary, Illinois, USA.  Teaching preachers needs oodles of humility and openness to the Holy Spirit. Part of my job involved writing a text book for seminary students. I knew that I needed to provide imagery that described my journey with the Bible and I prayed for a vivid picture that would justice to the principle of immersing into Scripture. Eventually, because of my stress on immersing myself into God’s word I chose the picture of the ‘preaching swim’. I set out the stages of preparation to emphasize the humility and wonder of immersing ourselves in God’s word with its own dynamic and purpose, flowing like a river, into which the listeners would be encouraged to join in too.  My main text (360 degree preaching, Hearing, Speaking and Living the Word, Baker Academic, 2003), describes how God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is involved in the whole process.  How deeply God desires us to learn, grow and be shaped into Christly community by his living word. 

Yes the Bible has been central to my life. Through childhood pictures, Sunday School exams, Teenage conversion and maturing in Bible study, ministry calling and the teaching of preachers. It's been an extraordinary journey. And I'm still on it. 

Inevitably I wonder about your journey with the Bible!  How is it going? 

 

Stage 4

The fourth stage was unexpected and unwanted. I was dead set against following my father into Baptist ministry. I had married and my mind (and my wife's) was far from ministry.  Yet, in our first year of marriage I underwent escalating spiritual tugs pulling me into full-time service. The process was full of checks and cross checks which included a preach in my own church - a large preaching centre in South London.  On the appointed August Sunday, with minimal preaching experience I spoke to the morning congregation. The minimal experience showed! Yet, for the evening sermon my preparation had immersed me for weeks in John 10: 19-20. Really immersed, so that the divided crowd reactions fired a surprising passion to preach. Some were saying he has a demon while others asserted: ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind’ ?  Caught up in Bible’s dynamic as never before, I preached an evangelistic sermon.  In the middle of preaching I had my one and only experience (so far) of God unmistakeably speaking to me. Suddenly, with intensity and stillness, even while I was speaking, I heard another voice: ‘Michael, I call you to preach.’  It was unforgettable and vocation forging in discerning God's call. I kept the experience private for many years but decades later I have become convinced that this experience was truly of God. 

At theological college studying the Bible took prime place. I actually revelled in learning Greek (Hebrew not so much!) and began the vital task of developing a biblical theology that would undergird my ministry.  I mustn’t exaggerate how much I loved the time I was given to listen to God in the text and engage with his message to me. There was much hard work. On ordination, I became a pastor in two churches - Blackburn for seven years and Cambridge for 14 years.  I was forced into the discipline of preaching twice every week and that began a rigorous engagement with Scripture.  How much I needed to grow in my understanding about listening to God in the Bible and then how to apply God's message to the congregation. My own Bible reading was critical and for several years I used a NIV volume setting out reading the whole Bible within two years. I found this was the best way for me to maintain daily discipline. 

I was surprised that, as I grew in experience, the Lord opened up ministry in writing daily Bible readings and notes, including a weekly column for the Baptist Times and youth material for Scripture Union. The Light for my path was deepening a love of sharing the light for others' paths. All an amazing privilege. Growing work with media also focused on sharing Bible messages.  As Free Church Advisor for Anglia ITV I filmed many epilogues. One series that audiences particularly responded to was my retelling of Jesus' parables in contemporary settings before inviting viewers to find the original passage for themselves.  After 21 years in local church ministry I was then appointed as Principal of Spurgeon's College with the daunting responsibility of helping shape men and women in their call to ministry.

Third stage

I think the third stage was kick-started by my mother giving me JB Phillips modern translation of the gospels in paperback.  It was the first time that I read something that was so fresh - I could see and hear Jesus in action. This personal engagement coincided with me joining a group of young people in the church who were older than me - and how serious they were about Jesus!  I began to wake up spiritually, and when I went forward to commit my life to Jesus as Saviour after a baptismal service, I knew the Holy Spirit had made a faith breakthrough.  Jesus was real and when I was baptised, aged 14, it was deeply personal. I had many questions and was particularly concerned my spiritual encounter was not some comfortable family conformity. Now, my engagement with the Bible had desire and hunger to know my Lord better.  Wider implications of Christian discipleship were coming into focus. 

Privileged to belong to a vibrant youth group, I leaned about prayer and studying the Bible with others. Enthusiastically we witnessed in Gloucester city-centre with open-air testimony while handing out tracts. Three of us went into full-time Christian ministry -it was an unusually intense group. I realize that my journey with the Bible owes so much to this grounding with spiritually sensitive friends. Together, we even presumed to lead worship and preach in country churches. The Bible was essential as we wrestled with basic theological questions  At one point, because of atheistic attacks on the resurrection at school, I really had to work and pray. Frank Morrison's Who moved the stone? greatly helped me. The child’s love for a story book had really grown into desire to live with the living Bible. As a teenager I was advised to write on my Bible’s inside cover: ‘This book will keep you from sin. Sin will keep you from this book’.

This third stage of my journey continued through into university.  Again, sharing with Christian friends proved vital to my growing discipleship. Involved with the Christian Union and especially the Baptist student society I found myself thrown into serious bible study in weekly study sessions. How refreshing it was to work with others in preaching teams and on annual Summer missions, based in local churches. What we believed and how we could speak well for Jesus depended on our walk with Jesus and his word. Having thoughtful Christian friends for whom the Bible was the bedrock for faith and action had an impact on my life's direction. 

5 stages

Another little project I have been invited to write is part of the Scripture Union's Light for my Path series. Different writers are asked to write about how the Bible has been significant in their lives with the hope that 'they will enjoy taking part and sharing a bit of your own Bible journey as a blessing to others'. So many possibilities open up about how I might approach this, but I wondered about the different stages along this journey. I think there are going to be five but I am not sure until I've finished..

The Bible has always been in my life. I guess that’s true for all of us fortunate to be nurtured within Christian families. Born into a Baptist minister’s family I reflect back and trace a journey with the Bible that began in my earliest memories. Unsurprisingly, the first stage was bedtime stories with an illustrated Children’s Bible. I still remember some of its pictures alongside great stories.  There were obvious scenes like the animals going into Noah's ark, but I remember best the impact early on when I saw a picture of Jesus with little children.  I could see he was kind and he loved me.  One of my earliest treasures I still possess is my Child's First Prayer Book . Jesus of the gospels was so real to me that I knew I could pour my heart out to him. On one page, with appalling spelling, I asked him to 'help me not dream' because of my dread of nightmares.    

The second stage, as I grew older, was attending Sunday School.  I admit at times it felt a duty and being the minister's son I was expected to set a good example (which I often didn't!). But there's no doubt the classes developed my Bible knowledge . I recall being rewarded with Bible stickers when I repeated memory verses.  Teaching literature was colourful and Summer holiday clubs were a special treat. ( What a vital resource Scripture Union provides at this level). Later, I am not sure at what age I was expected to sit the annual Scripture Examination.  A nationally organized exam, we had to answer questions in an exam setting. Prizes were awarded (I still have my children’s Pilgrim’s Progress).  I also remember rather unedifying competition between different Sunday Schools in our city!  Yet, without a doubt this annual ordeal helped me know the Scriptures in more depth. I had definitely developed knowledge but there was no personal connection yet with the Lord as Saviour.  As is often said, you really need to meet the author!  That didn't happen until the third stage but I look back on my childhood and early youth as critically important years of being grounded in God's word. I am so grateful for all the teachers and materials that influenced my journey.