All Souls Rector
All Souls Rector
John Stott’s time as Rector of all Souls Church covered some of the most interesting years in Britain. In 1950, most families were still living without much money. They would look for clothes or furniture in second-hand shops more often than buying them new. Few people had cars, and televisions were only just starting to appear in homes. As the 1960s began to unfold, so did a new Britain. There are many books written about the 1960s, when names like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Woodstock changed the music scene. If you want to understand the world your parents or grandparents grew up in, it is worth reading about this zany and fast-moving decade.
John Stott packed up his things in 1 Queen Anne Street, and planned to move into the Rectory, at 12 Weymouth Street, five minutes’ walk away. But what would he do with all the space? Since leaving home he had been used to student rooms in Cambridge, and then a bedsitter. Now he was moving into a house with a basement and five floors above it! After careful thought, he came up with an idea. He would invite curates, or unmarried men in the congregation to live in the house. All he needed to keep for himself was a bedroom and a study. He met with his churchwardens to ask what they thought:
‘We would still use the drawing room for church meetings during the week,’ he explained. This was the room from which he had so often been excluded (with his daggers and guns) in Sunday School.
The churchwardens and the church council agreed. It was an unusual plan for a rectory, but it made good sense. John began looking for housemates, and for a housekeeper and a cook.
Everyone had breakfast in the communal dining room in the basement, and everyone met there again for their evening meal. Those who lived there called it ‘The Wreckage’ (a cross between a rectory and a vicarage) or sometimes rather cheekily ‘The Stottery’. John Stott reported how well it was working in the All Souls newsletter. He enjoyed playing with words, and, joining now the beginning of Vicarage with the end of Rectory, he stated: ‘The Wreckage is a Victory’. And so it was.
John Stott could not forget his days as a tramp. It was no fun to be homeless. Harry Mossop still visited regularly for a meal. If John found himself in conversation after church with a man needing help, he invited the man home, gave up his own bed, and slept on a camp bed in his study.
With Harley Street specialists in one direction, and poor families in another, All Souls would always have to serve both, as well as shopworkers, businessmen, students... John was called by God to be pastor to those from each group, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. He wanted to make sure everyone was cared for.
In those days, the church congregation sat in pews. These were wooden benches with a back, all beautifully varnished, and with a little door at the end, to box it in. All Souls, like many other churches, set aside pews for families to rent each year for £60, if they so wished. (That was a huge amount of money then.) Families who could afford the money liked to know they could sit in the same place every week. But this troubled John. What if new people came into church and sat in a reserved pew without realizing, and then had to be asked to move? This would make people feel very awkward. Free seating everywhere was the only answer. He persuaded the church council that this was the way to go, and they agreed. Not everyone in church was happy, but John knew it was right.
One day a new family appeared in church. They were evidently not poor. The oldest daughter had become a Christian while living in France. Now she was home with her parents again, and she wanted to join a church. She had a younger brother and sister, and they started to come with her. John would always be at the back of the church to greet people as they left, and he got to know them. One Sunday he decided to invite the two younger children to tea in Weymouth Street. After tea, the plan was for him to talk with the girl and for his curate, John Eddison, to talk with the boy. Bash always sought a one-to-one conversation, and that was how John himself had come to faith at Rugby, so he tried to do this whenever he could. The children appreciated it, and came back to the next Guest Service in church with their whole family. The girl, who was fourteen at the time, wrote afterwards:
Wasn’t it wizard that the parents came to your last ‘Guest Service’. It was a terrific fight, but they came eventually!! Mr Eddison [the curate] said on the previous Sunday that everyone should bring a person with them, so I got Mummy, my brother got Granny, and Daddy just came! They enjoyed it very much; and Mummy now says that churchgoing becomes a habit!!
When are you coming over, because the parents want to talk with you, and if you come for an afternoon and evening you can do some bird-watching?
Lots of love
* * *
Life was very, very busy. John preached regularly, spoke at many events around the country, and handled a huge amount of correspondence. If people came to see him, he would allot each one half an hour and give them his full attention. After twenty-five minutes, it was time to close the conversation with prayer, and to turn his mind to the next person, who also needed undivided attention. And so the days were filled.
John picked up an idea around this time which changed the way he worked. The idea was really very simple. From then on he set aside one day a month for a Quiet Day away from the Wreckage. He left early, and did not get back until bedtime. This day gave him space for unhurried thought. Perhaps a letter needed a careful response, or an article had to be written – or he had a new idea to evaluate. This Quiet Day would go into his diary with a capital Q. That was all. But he knew what it stood for, and he would guard the day from any other intrusion. At one stage the monthly Q became a weekly Q. It was his lifeline. He said (though not publicly) that he would rather have this weekly Quiet Day than a day off, if he ever had to make a choice.
John’s mind was a breeding ground for new ideas. He needed time to bring them to the Lord and choose priorities. One idea which needed thought and prayer was very adventurous. Maybe, just maybe, All Souls should purchase a property close to the All Souls Primary School, to be used for the children’s work. (All Souls Primary School, linked to the church, served the poorer part of the parish.) Such a venture would cost a lot of money, as it would need to be furnished and equipped, and they would also need someone to run it. If they did have a building near the school, perhaps Sunday services could be held in it too. ‘Imagine,’ John thought to himself as he leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window. ‘A church without pews!’ This was very daring for its day.
In November 1958 the house at 139 Cleveland Street was opened as the All Souls Clubhouse. Tom Robinson from Canada was the first warden. As many as 392 children and young people came to the Opening. Many knew John Stott, and he knew most of them, though hardly any had ever come to All Souls. In due course Tom built a team of volunteers to help him run activities. On Christmas Day the Clubhouse served Christmas dinner to anyone who would be on their own for Christmas. The Clubhouse was very close to John Stott’s heart and he would go there for Christmas dinner whenever he could manage to.
John Stott was like a mental and a social gymnast. He was agile in hopping between the uneducated and the highly educated, and between dropouts and those in the highest ranks of society.
* * *
John Stott studied the Bible diligently, as God’s Word for his world. He also studied God’s world. He became well known for this. He read widely, so he could grasp what the leaders and influencers (or movers and shakers) of the day were saying. The extra term which he had spent in Cambridge had laid a wonderful foundation for this.
‘We need to give time to understanding ideas,’ he said to his church staff one week at their meeting. ‘Ideas shape the way we think, and the way we think shapes the way we behave.’
John Stott wanted to find out why people didn’t believe in Jesus, and what obstacles they had to believing. He wanted both his writing and his preaching to engage with real life – in schools, in the street, in the office, and in the university common rooms.
‘Intellectual pride is a terrible thing,’ John Stott went on. ‘People succeed at university, and become doctors, bankers, and professors. They think they do not need God. The Apostle Paul’s ministry is a great inspiration to me.’
The staff could see why straight away. The Apostle was a master in talking to the intellectuals of his day. (We can read his famous address to the great university city of Athens in Acts 17.) Skilfully he takes his listeners from what they know, and introduces them to what they don’t know. The Apostle Paul followed Christ with a passion. Three times in the New Testament he uses the phrase ‘my gospel’. He had committed his whole life to the gospel. The Apostle Paul was John Stott’s model as a thinker, and as a leader.
* * *
In the period following the Second World War, Britain was much more Christian than it is now. Some London businessmen decided to invite an American evangelist to come to Britain, and in faith they booked the huge Harringay Stadium. This evangelist was called Billy Graham.
Each night thousands poured into the stadium. Churches within a fifty-mile radius hired coaches. All Souls Church took busloads, night after night. Many people invited friends and family, just like the girl who thought it was ‘wizard’ to bring her parents to the Guest Service. There were adverts on the London Underground and on the city buses; there were newspaper adverts, and there were adverts on billboards around the suburbs. This visit of Billy Graham was massive news. John Stott was at Harringay every night, leading the way, inviting people to go.
* * *
The more John did, the more there was to do. Letters poured in at an alarming rate. He was being asked to speak at meetings around the UK and around the world. John needed a secretary to answer these letters, type articles and books, and field telephone calls. This was a frontline role, dealing with church leaders, missionaries, and organizers of events and conferences. His new secretary would have to be highly efficient. She would also need to understand what John was doing and have a good grasp of the evangelical faith.
A young woman called Frances Whitehead had been coming to All Souls for a few years. She worked at the BBC. She had gone through the ten-week course for new Christians, and was now teaching a group herself. Frances began to wonder whether she should go to Bible College and she made an appointment to speak with John Stott about it. John listened, then came up with a different idea – perhaps Frances should become his secretary. Frances thought he was most probably joking, so she put it out of her mind, and went back to work, still wondering about Bible College. About a week later, the phone rang in her office.
‘Have you thought any more about it?’ John asked.
‘Thought any more about what?’
‘About coming to be my secretary.’
‘No! I didn’t think you were serious!’John was serious. Frances agreed to think and pray about this new role.
A week later, Frances gave in her notice at the BBC. The year was 1956. Frances picked things up fast and soon became central to everything John Stott did. John started to call her ‘the omnicompetent Frances’. Neither of them could have imagined that they would work together for the rest of John’s long life. In 1983 the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded John a doctorate, the Lambeth Doctor of Divinity, and in 2001 the Archbishop awarded Frances a Lambeth M.A. This shows the huge contribution Frances Whitehead made to John Stott’s ministry. John was delighted that Frances received this recognition.
But let us not rush ahead …
* * *
We saw how John Stott developed a new idea for using the rectory. As he travelled, he often said to new friends ‘Come and stay at the Wreckage if you’re in London.’ This was typical of his generous nature.
When speaking at a university mission in Kenya, he got to know David Gitari, who much later became Archbishop of Kenya. David was at that time a student, and the chairman of the committee which had invited him to speak. In due course David came to study in the UK, and he stayed in Weymouth Street for a month. During that time he saw John only once, when they arranged to have breakfast together. ‘It was amazing to me, as an African,’ he said, ‘that I could stay in a friend’s house for a whole month, and see him only once, and that by appointment!’
John would be up early. With his busy diary, and the need to wedge in time to think as well as time to write, he couldn’t always join others when they gathered for meals.
* * *
In 1970, after twenty years with a heavily-packed schedule, John Stott realized the need for radical change. He wrote to his friend, Michael Baughen, in Manchester, and asked if they could meet next time Michael was in London. Michael Baughen was in for a surprise. John didn’t just want to catch up on news – he asked Michael Baughen to consider taking over the leadership of All Souls.
It was a wrench for Michael and his family to leave Manchester, but Michael sensed it was God’s leading. He was installed as vicar in 1970, and five years later was appointed fully as Rector, at the invitation of the Queen. John Stott now became Rector Emeritus. The Baughen family moved into the rectory as soon as they arrived. Everyone else in the Wreckage moved out, and a small mews flat was built for John over the garage at the back, facing down Bridford Mews.
Immediately above the garage was John’s bedroom and shower room (no room for a bath), and on the second floor a simple living room and small kitchen. The living room had bookshelves right along one wall, and John placed his desk in front of a large bay window overlooking the mews. The front door was at 13 Bridford Mews, but another door led from the bedroom, down a few stairs to the ground floor of the Rectory. It was a modest home, but John didn’t keep anything he didn’t use. So this space was all he needed.