Lausanne leader pays tribute to John Stott

Stott is one of the founding fathers of the movement and continues to act as its Honorary Chairman even in retirement.

Birdsall said he had spoken to Stott over the phone just a few weeks ago and expected that it would be their last conversation.

At the time of the call, the Cape Town Commitment was being read out loud to Stott by one of his old friends.

The Commitment was drafted in large part during the Congress and is a historic call to action for the world’s evangelicals.

Stott told Birdsall during their conversation that the document was “beautiful and profound”, and that with it, evangelicals had “achieved an astonishing degree of unity”.

Despite his frailty, Stott followed the unfolding of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation closely. Lausanne III was held in Cape Town last October and joined by 4,000 evangelicals from around the world. It was an event Stott had longed to see come to pass, Birdsall said.

He paid tribute to Stott yesterday, saying: “Thank you for the model of your life and for your life-long commitment to the unity of the whole church, the preaching of the whole gospel, and the evangelisation of the whole world.”

Stott retired from public ministry in 2007 at the age of 86 and lives in the College of St Barnabas, Lingfield, a residence for retired Anglican clergy.