Keeping the Legacy Alive

Great men and women of God who significantly impact history eventually retire, and then at some stage leave the scene of their earthly labours and join the saints in glory. But their vision and their legacy, if rightly handed on, can go from strength to strength. Such will certainly be the case with one of God’s most influential yet most humble servants, John Stott. Now in his eighties, John Stott was possibly the most outstanding leader of world evangelicalism for the whole second half of the 20th century. At the age of 86 he has at last announced that he is finally retiring from public ministry. But what will he leave behind?With characteristic wisdom and foresight, John Stott has already been considering this for the past decade. After consultation with many friends and organizations with which he had close links, he supervised the amalgamation of several ministries that he had founded into the Langham Partnership International. And in 2001, with the approval of several national boards, he handed over leadership of this movement to myself as International Director.

Within LPI there are six supporting national members (of which Langham Partnership UK and Ireland is one), one International Council, and ten regional councils around the world. Together they support three international programmes – Langham Scholars, Langham Literature and Langham Preaching. Each of these Langham programmes has its own International Programme Director, and these three gifted and committed individuals work together to serve the churches of the majority world with integrated and expanding programmes.

So, robust structures are already in place, with John Stott’s own approval and blessing, for his vision to be implemented with increasing vitality in the years ahead.

We can assure you that in these latter days of John Stott’s pilgrimage, nothing gives him greater joy and satisfaction than the remarkable blessing of God upon these Langham ministries.

➢ From a small fund to support a single Ph.D. student from Pakistan 35 years ago, Langham Scholars now supports 90 Scholars currently studying in doctoral programmes in 10 countries and comprises a worldwide family of more than 250 evangelical theological teachers and leaders.
➢ From a simple idea to recycle his own royalties into a fund to put books in the hands of needy pastors, Langham Literature has grown to a global book ministry that not only provides thousands of pastors and hundreds of seminary libraries with evangelical books each year, but increasingly facilitates indigenous writers and publishers in the creation of relevant evangelical books in regional languages.
➢ Meanwhile Langham Preaching is working to foster a culture of biblical preaching in more than 30 countries.

John Stott’s vision lives on with enhanced vitality and relevance in the work of Langham Partnership UK and Ireland, within Langham Partnership International. And with your help it can reach new levels of effectiveness for the Kingdom of God.

Chris Wright
International Director
Langham Partnership International