John Stott named Honorary Chair
Our dear “Uncle John” (as his many friends call John Stott) has received another significant honor. He has been named Honorary Chair of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (Lausanne). This good news came just a couple months after the TIME magazine article in April which named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In making the announcement of Dr. Stott’s new connection with Lausanne, Rev. S. Douglas Birdsall, Executive Chair of Lausanne, said in many ways “the name John Stott is synonymous with Lausanne because of the key role he has played in the development of the movement.” Birdsall added that as “an exemplary churchman, scholar and preacher committed to the full counsel of God, Dr. Stott has a heart and a vision for the world. Thus, he models the catchwords of Lausanne - the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world.”
Uncle John has been involved with Lausanne in various leadership roles since the beginning of the movement. At the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization, he served as chair of the drafting committee for the Lausanne Covenant and was one of the Covenant’s principal writers. From 1974-81 Dr. Stott chaired the Lausanne Theology and Education Group, an honor now held by our own Langham Partnership International Ministries Director, Chris Wright! Read the entire announcement on the Lausanne website.
Doug Birdsall is also a friend of JSM and JSM’s President, David Jones. Doug recently wrote to David about the work of JSM. He said, “In my experience, the three groups that have made the greatest impact in terms of raising up church leaders are IFES (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship), Scripture Union and JSM/Langham Partnership. Obviously at the highest level of developing scholars, the JSM-Langham Scholars Program is in a class by itself. I admire all that you are doing.” Our International Program Director for Scholars is Meritt Sawyer, who previously served as JSM’s Vice-President; she is doing an outstanding job in her new position.
We are grateful for the roles that John Stott and Chris Wright will be playing in Lausanne and grateful, too, for the strong endorsement of our work by Lausanne Executive Chair Doug Birdsall.