John Stott

When I became a Christ follower, I was on the lookout for books to help me find my spiritual bearings. I was introduced early to the writing of John Stott (1921-2011). He gave my new-found faith intellectual credibility. I gobbled up every Stott book I could find. Somehow in his 50-book collection, I missed reading The Birds as our Teachers: Lessons from a Lifelong Bird Watcher.  Stott reminded readers that Scripture is replete with aviary imagery. Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount includes a pointed reference to birds acting as our teachers. Stott was an avid birder, sighting Twenty-five hundred different species of birds (out of a possible nine thousand). Once, while lying still to catch a glimpse of a rare bird, he was taken for dead by a shepherd high on a Turkish mountain.
John described his bird watching in a light-hearted way as Orni-theology. He compared birding to common practices in the Christian life like repentance, self-esteem, gratitude, freedom, grace and love. He devoted an entire chapter to owls that can swivel their heads one hundred eighty degrees as a way to remind readers to look back and ahead in faith. We look back to Christ’s death and resurrection with deep gratitude and look forward to his return with eager expectation. Bird watching was a practical way for a busy man like John Stott to engage in Sabbath-keeping. It informed his understanding of creation-care, a theme essential to his theology long before it was trendy. He began each day with the following prayer: