Remembering Michael Green
Over the last few days, I have been reflecting on the life and ministry of Michael Green, as take many since his death was announced last Thursday, and I have been taken past surprise by realising how many times our paths crossed. The starting time was around the time that I came to personal faith myself, at 'Mission 77' in my home town in Orpington. I exercise not call back much of what was said, merely I do remember very clearly the lively sung worship (I tin even nevertheless remember one of the songs) which was quite a surprising to me as I was even so a practising Catholic.
I realised how important some of his books were to me in my early years of thinking almost faith—To Corinth with Honey was one of the first things I read near Paul's letters;Freed to Serve helped me to think nearly ordination; I readI Believe in Satan's Downfall forth with the other books in the series; I usedThe Empty Cross of Jesus in didactics, appreciating Michael'south insistence that the cross and resurrection cannot exist separated; and I am the only person I know who has read any of his early on academic work The Meaning of Salvation, which you tin withal buy! (Michael claimed that information technology was and so the but comprehensive overview of the subject area…)
As a student at Oxford, I attended St Aldate's where Michael was Rector and it was there that I became a committed Anglican—ironically, because of realising the importance of liturgical worship! I kept notes from all the sermons (and still have them in a blue file in the loft), and can still recollect several of Michael's sermons and his powerful rhetoric. I can remember the beginning of his Fresher's Sermon, and his preaching on the Holy Spirit, talking about the theory of what the Spirit is supposed to practise, and the reality for many today, connected with 'At present I now many of yous are sitting there thinking to yourself—Michael Green you are a fool!' He summed up the contrast between theory and practice with the memorable: 'Got it all, accept y'all? Well, where it is and then?!' And I tin can withal remember his exposition of the story of the Dissipated Son during the Academy mission in my second year.
Michael was keen on working in partnership with others, wherever possible, and he jointly hosted sessions with Keith Weston, and so Rector of the more conservative St Ebbe's (the distinction between the two neighbouring churches remains much the same today) for those exploring ordination. Ten years later I constitute myself joining the get-go Springboard team on a mission week to Northwood. Sharing my ain testimony at an evening event in someone's home made me rethink why and how I had come to organized religion; I had the slightly surreal experience of being volunteered by Michael to lead some street drama; and I remember dinner with Michael at a host family where he insisted on doing the washing up and not beingness waited on. The experience didn't turn me into an evangelist (though see Anthony Delaney'southward experience beneath). Merely I learnt from Michael'southward commitment, energy (which I retrieve might take fabricated him difficult to live with at times), humility, and his willingness both to trust others and to see them abound into fruitful ministry for themselves—besides as his unwavering commitment to seeing people come up to religion.
I ended up non only studying at the College of which he had been Chief, appointed to oversee its move from the London Higher of Divinity to beingness St John's College, Nottingham, but too after joining the staff there, and living in the house which Michael had lived in and from whose windows he shot rabbits. (Past the time we were there, the field at the dorsum of the business firm had become an executive housing estate, so no more shooting allowed.) Michael's legacy to the Church and the gospel was enormous, and I suspect there are very few evangelical Anglicans of my generation who were not touched and influenced past his ministry.
Seventeen years ago, in his autobiography Adventure of Faith, he anticipated his own death with realism and joy:
1 of the all-time insights nearly life after expiry came my way quite recently. For many years I was friends with Terry Winter, the Canadian evangelist who had a remarkable boob tube ministry. I did three programmes with him shortly earlier he died suddenly and unexpectedly. His last programme was on resurrection and in it he said, 'You volition hear one day that Terry Wintertime is dead. Don't you believe information technology. He will be more alive than ever'. That program was aired, in its regular scheduling, two days later he died. I could not accept expressed information technology too equally he did, but I share his confidence as I wait to the 'tomorrow' of my own life.
I include below three further reflections, the first from Rod Symmons who was curate with Michael at St Aldate's and afterwards taught at Trinity College, Bristol and was Vicar of Redlands Parish Church. And then two shorter pieces, 1 from Stephen Travis who joined Michael on the staff at St John'due south in 1970, and the other from Anthony Delaney, a student at St John'southward in the 1990s who at present leads Ivy Church in Manchester.
Rod Symmons writes: My showtime encounter with Michael was a handwritten letter addressed to me at my theological college inviting me to explore the possibility of condign curate at St Aldate's Church in Oxford.
A few weeks after I arrived at the Rectory on a Fri afternoon for a weekend interview. Michael's secretarial assistant greeted me at the door and showed me into the kitchen, where Michael was skinning a rabbit. I pretty quickly worked out that this was not going to be a traditional interview—or a traditional curacy! I worked with Michael for his final 3 and a half years at St Aldate's. At times it was exhausting, but it was also richly rewarding and I will for e'er be grateful for the opportunity of sharing those years with him.
A Passionate Evangelist
Within a few days of my ordination Michael took me with him to a funeral he was taking at one of the colleges. He didn't know the family—he was filling in for the chaplain who was on holiday—but he had formed a human relationship with them preparing for the funeral and his address at the funeral included a perfectly crafted evangelistic entreatment. He offered copies of The Day Death Died at the cease and a good number of the congregation took them.
This was typical of Michael—every conversation was an opportunity, whether planned or spontaneous. At the offset of each autumn term he would preach the "Freshers' Sermon" to a packed St Aldate'southward with hundreds responding to the invitation to bring together a Beginners' Group. In personal interviews he used a picture of the Lite of the World that hung in a higher place the fireplace in his report to aid a succession of visitors to find a living relationship with Christ.
An Anarchistic Pastor
Michael'south listen worked too fast to notice information technology piece of cake to just sit down and chat with old ladies over a loving cup of tea, only he built a church that was securely pastoral by identifying, releasing and affirming the gifts of others. He cared about people and he wanted them to be cared for. Michael was most at ease with university students, only he wanted the church to exist representative of the whole city.
He built structures that enabled the church to achieve that. Thirty years later, I look back on the Pastoral Team at St Aldate's with immense affection—it was a group made up of pastoral staff and lay members of the congregation that was extraordinarily attentive to God and to the needs of the congregation. I discovered that Michael had a habit of setting off half an hr early on to a meeting and visiting a family unit on the way. Sometimes this would lead to a pastoral conversation, sometimes he would pitch in and help with the washing up and sometimes he would read a child a bedtime story. He might have been a global figure on the Christian phase, but within the church building he was a pastor to everyone.
A Apprehensive Leader
Michael built a staff squad of people with backgrounds and views that differed from his own. On boilerplate he probably had about twenty ideas a 24-hour interval, roughly eighteen of which would be completely bonkers and the other two would be brilliant.The problem for Michael was that he had little idea which was which, only he trusted his squad to tell him and he submitted his ideas for the church, the invitations to speak and write and (ultimately) his decision to move on from St Aldate'southward to the wisdom of the team that he had assembled.
On occasions he would unwittingly say things that caused offence to others. When he discovered that he had done this he was ever mortified and would immediately unconditionally and sincerely apologise. It is a quality that was deeply endearing and meant that nobody I am aware of worked with Michael without loving him and having a strong loyalty to him.
A Committed Disciple
Michael came to St Aldate'due south from St John's Nottingham with an immense reputation through his writing and speaking, just in his first sermon at St Aldate's he wore '50 Plates' over his surplice to indicate that he was a learner. He had never led a church building and he and the congregation were going to be on a journey. That spirit of learning reflected the fact that above everything else, Michael was a follower of Christ. He and Rosemary led a very simple life—he drove an sometime machine until it died, they were incredibly hospitable (Rosemary produced industrial quantities of flapjack) but their kitchen furniture consisted of metal and sheet chairs that must take come from a church hall onetime in the 1960'due south and I don't think he troubled the many wearable stores within a rock's throw of the Rectory a dandy bargain with his custom. His income from writing was fed back into the church to use staff colleagues.
He preached a whole-hearted gospel and he lived it out. He moved from conversation into prayer and dorsum again and his life was congenital on an unquestioning and uncompromising obedience to the Scriptures.In amid the business of ministry Michael and Rosemary raised a remarkable family unit of children. Although they had all left school before I arrived, Beth and I got to know each of them at different times and hugely admired them.
This was a rich season in the life of the church with a blend of evangelical preaching (enriched past scholarship) paired with an openness to the Holy Spirit in a broad charismatic renewal. In the thirty years since we left St Aldate'south our lives have continually crossed with people whose own lives were shaped by Michael'due south ministry building there. Throughout the 13 years I was on the faculty at Trinity College in Bristol, there was always someone who had been part of St Aldate's at that time—including colleagues on kinesthesia. (I also first met the editor of this blog when he was an undergraduate worshipping at St Aldate's!)
I count it 1 the greatest privileges of my life to take worked with Michael and Rosemary and we are praying for Rosemary, Tim, Sarah, Jenny and Jonathan and their families equally they travel through this flavor. I am praying also that those of u.s.a. whose lives were shaped by his may have the courage to accept up the baton and live lives that are equally wholly committed to Christ as his was.
Stephen Travis writes: I commencement met Michael Dark-green at university, when he delivered three lectures which were to get his volume Delinquent Earth.They were a brilliant combination of apologetics and evangelism. which made a deep impression on many listeners. A year or two later I was completing my PhD in theology, and looking for a job. I ventured a letter to Michael asking if he had any advice for me. To my surprise he suggested I should go to come across him and colleagues at the London College of Divinity where he taught, and was nearly to become Principal. On my inflow he immediately suggested a game of squash. He found me a shirt and shorts to wear, and so proceeded to beat me comprehensively. In due course they appointed me—a relatively inexperienced Methodist laymen—to teach the New Attestation.
Michael was Principal for six years, overseeing the college's move to Nottingham, at present renamed St John's Higher. Those beginning years in Nottingham were exciting days. Some sometime traditions died somewhere between Northwood and Nottingham, and new ones adult. Women were encouraged to study at the college, and subsequently worked in various forms of ministry building. From time to time Michael would exist away for a couple of weeks, leading missions in diverse afar countries. A outcome was that a year or two later men and women from the United states of america, South Africa and Commonwealth of australia, attracted past the kind of ministry he embodied, would arrive equally students.
Michael was a take chances-taker, and most of the risks he took came off. Any that didn't he would attribute to the Welsh claret in him. Under his leadership, St John'due south was a liberating, chance-taking place. Rarely are the gifts of scholarship, writing and evangelism combined in such abundance in one person. I personally, and the church as a whole, accept much to be grateful for as we call up him.
Anthony Delaney writes: During my preparation Michael came to do a mission at St John's and took me under his fly somewhat. As an impoverished pupil I had no money to come to a grade he put on afterward to train evangelists and so he permit me come up and tape (old school) the talks instead. I fluffed taping his, but he let me off! I was so ashamed of how badly I had messed upward but he insisted on thanking me effusively, maxim something in Latin and then, 'We couldn't have done this without y'all' – not true of course, but a measure out of his grace.
I went on to be invited to be part of his team on more missions and saw how he could operate missionally across a diversity of church tradition, by focusing on presenting Christ to all.At one mission in Northampton we were sent out to various pubs to befriend people and invite them to hear Michael preach. We'd talked to a man who said he'd exist working that night but asked more than questions about Jesus and eventually asked, 'Can't I just do it here?' He gave his life to Christ.
When we shared this at the squad meeting adjacent morning, I'll never forget that Michael gasped out loud. I saw projectile tears outburst from his eyes. Information technology was as if this was the first time he had e'er heard it happen. Despite seeing thousands come to faith through his ministry building, he never lost the thrill of the greatest phenomenon – the lost sheep institute.
Nor can I forget one stirring, stinging sermon on the church at Laodicea. Nobody always described Michael as lukewarm, now he receives his reward for sharing the passionate dear of Jesus as described in the letter to that church, "To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, but as I was victorious and sat down with my Male parent on his throne".
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