One to One with Mark Stibbe

For two decades St. Andrews Church, Chorleywood was at the forefront of renewal in the UK, under the leadership of David Pytches. The church became the ‘entry point’ for John Wimber into the UK in the ‘80s and they also initiated the New Wine Bible Week and Soul Survivor. Nine years ago David handed over to Mark Stibbe. Recently, Nigel Ring went to meet him.

NR: Mark, tell me about your background.
MS: I was born in 1960 to a single parent. My twin sister Claire and I were put in an orphanage in Hackney in north London. We were adopted seven months later by Philip and Joy Stibbe and, in due course, I was sent to Winchester College where an amazing revival broke out and I found Jesus!

I gained a scholarship to read English literature at Cambridge University where I had an incredible visitation of the Lord Jesus. I felt called to the Anglican church and Bishop Maurice Wood, who had a heart for evangelism, sponsored me. I soon found myself at St John’s College, Nottingham.

NR: Were your books ‘From Orphans to Heirs’ and ‘The Father You’ve Been Waiting For’ written out of your own personal history?
MS: Yes! Being orphaned then adopted gives you an extraordinary advantage. It has given me a rich grasp of the adopting grace of our Heavenly Father who chose me, just like my adopted father, Philip Stibbe. My adopted father always said he was filled with pleasure when he took Claire and me in his arms and brought us home. He said that I couldn’t possibly imagine the smile on his face! When Ephesians 1 says that ‘He adopted us, He predestined us in accordance with His pleasure’, ‘pleasure’ really resonates for me. I understand the fullness and the richness of that word.

Orphans to Heirs was my first attempt to explore the doctrine of adoption. The gift book, The Father You’ve Been Waiting For is for non-Christians and points to the heart of God. It is the gospel, the adopting grace of God, undeserved love.

NR: Did you ever consider secular work?
MS: I did some school teaching but knew I was called to ordained ministry and was fast-tracked into a theology degree. I started a PhD doing a literary and narrative analysis of the passion of Jesus in John’s gospel. I have always believed that the Bible is not just truthful but beautiful. That is something the Lord has given me a special passion for.

NR: How did you meet your wife?
MS: Alie and I met through the Cambridge Christian Union. I was trying to get my friends along. Alie was involved in the administration. We fell head over heels in love! A year later we got married and went up to St John’s College.

NR: Was Alie also studying?
MS: Sadly, no. She was asked to work to fund my training. However, now she is doing a PhD in Theology and Scandinavian studies on Norway’s equivalent of John Wesley.

NR: Tell me about your children.
MS: Philip is seventeen and is very involved in our worship leading and song writing here. Hannah is sixteen. She shares a great love of film with me and is very clever and beautiful like her mum! Jonathan is fifteen, a hilarious comedian and will probably make people laugh into the kingdom! Sam is nine yet comes out with extraordinary wisdom about the things of God. I have a fantastic family!

NR: You have mentioned both humour and films. How do you use these for the gospel?
MS: My closest friend, J John, is probably one of the most entertaining and anointed speakers in the UK today. We have produced five books of funny stories to help people communicate the things of God. In the life of Jesus and the gospels, seen within its own Jewish context, there are some very funny things!

As for film, I believe God is speaking very powerfully through Hollywood. When you are ministering to post-moderns, movies and music are great vehicles for relevant communication.

NR: Is it that films give us an understanding of the ‘signs of the times’? Should Christians go into film production as a medium for communication?
MS: I would say, ‘Yes!’ to both of those. Some very popular films in recent years with an extraordinarily rich sub plot have been directed by Christians, like Frank Darabont and Tom Shadyac. God is, also, speaking through script writers and directors who aren’t Christians in the myths and stories that we tell today.

NR: Back to your career! What did you do when you left St John’s?
MS: My PhD was only half way through so we stayed in Nottingham and did a curacy. We then felt called to St Thomas Crookes in Sheffield when it was really buzzing and growing in revival. I then had three and a half years in a dried up stream, learning some character issues. That was one of the hardest times of my life.

NR: How did you come to St Andrews?
MS: I wasn’t looking for a move but in 1996 J John and Mike Pilavachi persuaded me to have a look at St Andrews. As I drove there the Lord spoke to me. The preacher was preaching on the qualities of the next leader from Joshua 1. He pointed to where I was sitting and said, ‘Who knows, the next leader of St Andrews may be out there, even now, praying about whether he should respond to a call to come here!’

Alie and I had about 30 such instances over a three-month period. By the time I was interviewed I knew we were called. Sometimes it has been hard. Turning a big ship that has already been in renewal was very different from bringing a place into renewal. But I am so glad that we said, ‘Yes!’

NR: Taking over a church that had enjoyed such blessing must be daunting. Are there lessons about how to hand over?
MS: There is an argument for training someone from within the culture. I was brought in from outside; I knew of the church but not the story and spirituality of the people. So there were clashes. Some larger churches have a really hard time going into a next generation of renewal. I think there is a debate to be had about this hugely complex issue.

NR: Did you find it easy adopting someone else’s team?
MS: A new leader does need to choose his own team from scratch, if necessary. Team leadership is about relationship and so if you can choose who you want on the bus, it is much easier to get where the bus needs to go. All the people I worked with when I arrived here were great, but they weren’t my chosen people.

NR: You talk about ‘where the bus is going’. What is your vision for St Andrews?
MS: My vision has always been for revival in the community and in the culture, I think because of my experience of revival at school. When I came here that burden wasn’t shared by everyone.

There has been a transition taking place in the body of Christ in this nation from consumerism to evangelism, from a maintenance to a mission focus, from a ‘feed me’ to a ‘feed them’ focus. I believe God is wanting to transition churches into constantly sending people out in mission. We’ve turned from feeding on renewal to intentionally reaching the lost.

However, I draw a distinction between vision and strategy. I’m not so strong on strategy but my assistant, Andrew Williams, is. We’ve chosen to invest in mid-size communities of up to 70, sending them out to do mission in Starbucks, school halls, community centres, all over the locality. We’ve trained and released over a hundred new leaders for 22 such ‘communities’. There’s been more evangelistic growth than when we tried to be seeker-friendly in one place. When we moved out of the building, the multiplication dynamic kicked-in.

NR: Are these communities ‘congregations’ or task-focussed?
MS: We used to be like one battleship surrounded by a couple of little escorts. My role was captain. Now we are a task group, a flagship surrounded by escorts and groups of ships, with a ‘licence to hunt’. I command ‘by exception’, getting involved only under the following two exceptions. One is if I’m invited, the other is if I see them going off course theologically. We have very low control and very high accountability.

We don’t call them church plants. For us that has meant cloning. We felt the Lord say, ‘Don’t try and imitate the centre. Explore inspirational worship. Explore the ministry of the Word being interactive and involving. Explore what it means to do prophecy with the arts, not just giving a Word on a Sunday.’

So we have pioneering units that are on the frontiers of mission. They come into St Andrews on a rotational network basis. We’re not deconstructing in a sort of ‘post-modern’ mess. Deconstructing into smaller units and doing away with the larger unit is un-Biblical and dangerous. ‘Letting God’s people go’ is important, but it doesn’t mean no accountability.

NR: You’ve mentioned the prophetic and evangelism. Can you share with us about prophetic evangelism?
MS: Prophetic evangelism is one of the most exciting things that God’s opened up to us. I love it! Jesus used it, with the woman at the well. He saw right into her heart. Then a whole town comes to Jesus as a result of that one word. The prophetic church was supposed to be activated at Pentecost and this same church was supposed to be evangelistic. For instance, ‘Your sons and daughters will prophesy…’ and, ‘You will receive power when the Spirit comes upon you. You will be my witnesses.’ Prophecy and evangelism should go together. We’ve really been trying to do this, through conferences and writing. There is that same sort of Wimber-hunger around with it. That excites me!

Healing is the second thing. God wants to reinstate that. Healing is one of the best tools we have for reaching lost people.

The third thing is mercy and compassion for the poor and marginalised. Churches that excel in the prophetic, in prayer for healing and in kindness would be immensely exciting and all-confirming to the truthfulness of the gospel.

NR: You touched on the poor. Are there specifics where the church can be effective?
MS: There’s massive need to minister to the youth, homeless, drug addicts and so on. On our doorstep are young people who have never known love. The only hope is the local church. They’re the immediate poor for many churches.

Outside our nation, Africa is probably the biggest challenge. Bono’s recent speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, was one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever heard, almost on a par with Dr Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’.

NR: Are you personally involved internationally?
MS: For ten years I’ve done a lot of ministry in the Nordic nations. Now other parts of the world are opening up. Every time I stand up and speak I wonder what on earth I’m doing there. I’m just an adopted kid from Hackney!

NR: What gifting do you bring to the body when you’re travelling?
MS: Leadership and teaching, particularly prophetic preaching. My leadership is seen by others as pioneering, provocative, cutting-edge.

NR: You’ve written books on spiritual gifting. How do you help people to be effective members of the body?
MS: You have to have a culture and an ethos of release, a local church where people can discover and use their gifts. After we lost our building for ten months and moved into mid-sized communities, one of the great joys was seeing spiritual growth as people discovered what they were gifted at.

NR: What do you see as some of the major issues facing the church? What would you say to young, emerging leaders in tackling them?
MS: The two greatest challenges are Islam and the new Humanism, which embraces many things – religious pluralism, civil partnerships, gay adoption – all sorts of things. We are now seeing these enshrined in law. New Humanism really shouldn’t tolerate Islam because it is extremely dogmatic in its militant form. The church needs to provide a viable kingdom antidote to these two phenomena. We need emerging leaders with the anointing that Daniel and Joseph had, prophetic dreamers who understand the things of the Spirit and how to stand within their cultures.

NR: Recently you met with Terry and other senior leaders from the UK. Do you see significance in that gathering?
MS: I accepted the invitation because I greatly honour Terry and Newfrontiers. I really appreciate what Newfrontiers has given in terms of the kingdom of God and expansion and growth. The guys were clearly key leaders and shapers with a very strong apostolic ethos and prophetic openness. There was a lot of mutual affection and respect. I think this group should have a baton-handing dynamic to include people in their 20s and 30s; the baby boomers and the baby buster generation meeting together. Otherwise we could be in danger of a destructive rather than a creative kingdom fragmentation.

NR: Mark, before we close, is there anything else you would like to say?
MS: I have a growing conviction that we are on the edge of something that is quite dramatically big. Revival usually occurs within a context of uncomfortable events. I sense we are under judgement but I believe the mercy of the Lord will triumph. There is something coming that is pretty big – call it revival, call it the next wave of the Holy Spirit. I was watching The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. One of the characters says, ‘Aslan is on the move again,’ and I just got a sense in my Spirit of, ‘Yes, He is!’ I feel that there is going to be a great rising up of people in the church, especially amongst the young. It is four kids in the Narnia movie who make the big difference!

I think we are on the verge of seeing a greater capacity for the supernatural released into the body of Christ than perhaps has been seen almost since the 1st century. It feels very imminent. A lot of prophetic people feel that 2006 and 2007 are critical years.

NR: Would you feel this applies only to this nation or worldwide?
MS: I feel it’s for both. It’s going to come through difficulty. Everywhere the church needs to start building arks, places of rescue for the lost. I don’t think this is going to be a move of the Holy Spirit with lots of frivolity, laughter and so on. There will be laughter and joy, but a lot of weeping as well, the price of revival. At St Andrews we feel we are entering a pretty important couple of years.

NR: Mark, on that serious note, I’d like to thank you for sharing your heart with us.

One to One with Mark Stibbe

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