Hello and welcome to Deep Roots, a conversation about theology and ministry brought to you by Oak Hill College.
My name is Andrew Nicholls, I'm Director of Pastoral Care and I'm joined today by on my left
Kristi Mayer, hello, good to be with you.
It's great to have you Kristi. And our special guest in the podcast today is a relative new
coming to the College but really not a guest at all, already very much belongs here, it's our new
Principal James Robson. James, welcome to you.
Thank you very much, great to be here.
Well you really are hugely welcome here, we're delighted to have you and we wanted just to have
a few minutes to chat with you. I've heard by other people about the things that you care about,
that the College cares about in terms of theological education, the kinds of hopes and dreams we might
have for how the College can serve the Church. James, let me start with this one, you've had no
warning of these questions but you left a ministry that you were feeling, beginning to feel very
settled in and no doubt felt very fruitful, it served thousands of people through the Keswick
Convention. What was it about theological education that drew you to what in one sense feels like a
much smaller place, much smaller ministry? That's a great question. It goes back quite a long time.
So I was converted as a student in the 1980s and I then went to theological college after working
with IBM for a few years and it was a bit of a disappointment in honesty for me and I
left in 1994 and then went to work in the church just down the road from Oak Hill here in Christchurch
Crockfosters and as part of that I got involved with a network of younger ministers, Christian ministers
and we went away to this conference together, about a hundred of us I suppose, and someone at
that meeting stood up and said who's had a good experience with theological college and not a single
hand went up and then they said and who are you thinking about going into theological education
and not a single hand went up. He said well there you are then and it really struck me that these
are really important places and I heard John Stott speak in 1998 in a little event and he said the
health of the church around the world depends on the health of its colleges and there was that
strong sense then if I don't who does? I'd be fortunate enough to have done Greek as one of my
undergraduate subjects so I learned Hebrew as a student at the theological college and so few
evangelicals did any biblical languages at all and so I thought well who else can step into this
and if we don't like what's going on in churches then and we don't like what's going on in colleges
then we have to go back to the source and I also chatted with, it sounds like name dropping, it's not
I wanted to ask big questions, ask Jim Packer the question and you know he basically said the
theologian or the college is a bit like a plumber they're trying to make sure that good water goes
to the church because down the track it's out of the colleges that churches drink the water so you
want to make sure that go upstream to the very beginning of that so I had a passionate sense
of vocation for theological education in the mid-90s soon after I've been converted and then
started training for ministry. And you started as a theological educator here in fact I think I was
one of your first students who taught me Hebrew, please don't test me on it again as you did in
those days but you have then you taught here and have then been in other places widening your sense
of experience tell us just a little bit about some of that background. So in honest I really
fell into this role it was amazing God's kindness and I suppose I had that sense of do what others
can't and won't do and people weren't really thinking about theology education and in the
mid-90s there was a new principal here at Oak Hill, David Peterson and he came to the church
where I was at in Cockfosters and he said come and do some further study here and amazingly the then
bishop of Edmonton helped fund it which was extraordinary back then because and so I started
doing a actually a B fill because I was ill for my theology finals I started teaching at Oak Hill
with no theology degree whatsoever. Did we know that at the time? I'm not sure you did. That's a fascinating bit of information.
So I was started doing a bachelor of philosophy a dissertation bachelor's degree to try because I
completed all my study in Oxford at Wycliffe Hall but I hadn't taken the finals and that then became
an M fill and then David Peterson said would you come and join the faculty and I didn't know what to do
so I said well okay so I sort of fell into this and I think it was on the back of teaching my first
Hebrew class with you and so I had nine extraordinary years here and it was just an extraordinary
privilege to be with a bunch of amazing students and amazing colleagues and that real sense of can do
rather than can't do and so much of the evangelicalism in this country had been I am what I am in spite of my
theological education and there was a real sense to actually I couldn't we go to a place where I say I am what I am
because of my training it can be a real winner and it can really make a difference to ministry
and I watched that and people going out and serving all over the place it was such an incredible privilege
that was in 2000 2009 and what happened from 2009 so I then went from here to be the senior
tutor at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford that was a massive culture shock and it was really really
interesting because they're two evangelical colleges trying to do the same kind of thing
but they were so different in lots of ways and so that was a really really hard learning experience
it wasn't helped by the fact that I fractured my spine just as I left Oak Hill to go and teach there
so I was off sick for the first six months of six weeks and was in a back brace for three months I couldn't pick up a book
but it was really interesting because here you're on one campus site people of were funding their way
to stay for an extra year whereas in Oxford you're much more permeable the boundaries because people
coming and going and people in the university and people coming through Oxford which was really a very
different kind of feeling so it had a lot of stimulus to it but it maybe lacked the intensity
and focus that came from being more like a greenhouse environment here at Oak Hill so
and people weren't that motivated for the most part it was really interesting culturally and trying
because they were doing stuff in the university with students or that kind of thing and people
couldn't wait to get out which is no wonder this is a great thing but it was just very interesting
culturally but I learned an enormous amount being part of the faculty in Oxford teaching Hebrew in
the university and Old Testament as well as just seeing a different way of operating a different
setting that sense of imposter syndromes turning up and Oxford is an amazing place it's a very quirky
place as well and there's a certain kind of attitude which I found difficult as well it was like
slightly we know best we know and I'd come from Oak Hill which was an extraordinary place
and seeing the calibre of the students and the calibre that were coming out and I sort of wouldn't
hear a word of criticism for from the university or from anyone at Fort Oak Hill. So then fast
forwarding a few years you went through you went to Keswick was that directly afterwards?
Yes I was worked at Wycliffe from 2010 to 2016 and during that time some friends actually one
guy who was Chief Executive of Enpower for a time one of the big energy companies who I was a prayer
partner within Oxford and he said you've got some leadership gifts you ever thought about leading
something and I'd watched lots and lots of colleges imploding or exploding evangelical colleges and
that was just for me immensely sad and I thought Lord I don't know whether I've got the right
gifts and skill and heart but it's the kind of who else does and will so when a friend of mine
who's now in Australia and a little support group they're part of I was chatting about the role at
Keswick he said yeah I think you should give it a go it's not an obvious move from being a teacher
in Oxford at Senior Teacher Wycliffe Hall to being Ministry Director of Keswick Ministries you're
moving out of the academic world in some ways but I loved their Keswick's heart first of all for a generous
spirit in the sense that it was clearly evangelical but it was a for you culture it was a generous
heart but reaching across a broad evangelical world which I loved as well it cared about
Christlikeness and that really mattered a lot to me because I'd watched things in lots of churches
I thought I'm not really very keen on and we need if we're not Christ like we've got nothing
and then it was chanced from the other side to think do you know could I if heart appetite to
lead something is that something and try it in that kind of environment and this friend said you know
probably if you're 51 which I was then you've probably got two jobs inside you if you gave five
to seven years to Keswick then maybe something else might come after that which extraordinarily
in God's economy he did so what brought you back sorry I'm here the end of this story yeah so um
I found Keswick working with Keswick Ministries both an incredible privilege but really hard
I walked into various storms um particularly with the town of Keswick um and had a crash
course in PR there was of course Covid my wife had breast cancer and we were part of doing a big
eight million pound fundraising project and moving the convention from one site to another in Keswick
and um some team changes and some were ready for that change and some were not so it was a
very demanding time and it was I guess November 22 having sort of come through some of those things
that I rang the chair of the board at um so actually a monthly call with the chair of the
board of Keswick and I said do you know Jeremy's Jeremy McCoy the first time in six years I feel
in a spacious place and then I got a call from Oak Hill saying would you think about coming
back here to Oak Hill um and I said to the Lord what do you mean there's a fire over there what
this is work to do over here I've just taken my oxygen mask off and what do you mean go and
serve in that setting um and you know because I knew that there was obviously pressure on residential
training and um just the demands of a theological college so it was a kind of um I talked to various
friends and they all said go for it and I just had a strong sense of conviction that it was the
right thing and to do and there are it's I suppose the Lord Sunset Lord had prepared because I've
done the wider church network world led an organization and something about knowing the
culture and the values and the feel of that I've been involved in PhD in the academy and so on
I did experience the theological education and New Oak Hill so there was a sense of breadth of those
things and seems well I made myself available and if I wanted that's great if not that's fine
it's the Lord's business yeah well it seems like God has waven many threads together to bring you
here and um as I say we're glad to have you indeed you all you said something I'd love to draw you
out a little bit on the thing you loved about the Keswick culture was it was very generous and a
for you culture and what's how is that going to shape what you want Oak Hill to be um and perhaps
and perhaps the the church um if Oak Hill is trying to deliver clean water to the churches what
what does generosity look like so that's a great question so the clean water church can be both a
theological thing but also a relational thing but I initially I was thinking about the theological
but in terms of the generosity of heart for me it came out of Romans 8 and when Paul says if God is
for us who can be against us and if you stop to pause and think of what that means in practice
that means that if someone else is a brother or sister in Christ God is for them and if God is
for them what's my default posture towards someone else and it must be a for you culture so they're
God's beloved child they're made in his image they're precious therefore what's my posture is
treat people with dignity and love and kindness and respect because that's what God is like and
that's people made in God's image and in fact that came to me very much wind the clock back a
little bit at the four in Keswick there was one person in Keswick who was from the town who was
very critical of me and of the convention and at one moment in one of our staff meetings someone
said something about this guy and I said well this isn't who we are this person's made in God's image
and we need to speak about people with dignity and respect of course we frustrated and difficult
but that's the foundational thing look I got that wrong lots and I wish I'd do better at that
but that's my heart so I think what does that look like in practice on the ground it's I give
people the benefit of the doubt I want to understand their world and to listen deeply to them and
understand them rather than being quick to make knee-jerk judgments and reflections on who they
are or what their motives or what they meant by saying that and I just want to linger that bit
longer and understand because for the vast vast majority of time people just need understanding
and listening to and they feel if they're not heard then people start getting frustrated or
behaving in ways that's what's like you know we all do we all human beings we all do in ways that
in other days we wouldn't behave like and you're thinking well it's no good just saying that
behavior is not good you have to go back behind and think what are we doing to generate that kind
of situation so it was that kind of for you culture that's not the same as being nice in
the sense that you're only seven nice things because sometimes you have to say hard things
but people know that your fundamental orientation is that you care for the person and you want the
best for them and that's that's my heart and passion how do you pass that on to to students
during their time here well I think first of all modeling it so you can you can only model it by
picking genuine interest in their welfare genuine interest in them as people made in God's image
listening and understanding and spending time with and engaging with and then gently because
it's gently because you know encouraging people to do the same in their contexts and to and to
coach people that's why one of the things I love about residential training is you've got a chance
to work over a longer period of time with people and just to journey with them and help people to
come to that place you actually I can trust you I can trust this place I can know this is a good
place where I can be vulnerable and open and unpack some of the things that maybe I've not
talked about before not worked through before and to work through those in a way in a in a good
safe place where you can work those things through and navigate those so you're better equipped to
serve the church just hearing you saying some of these things about um you know trusting particular
places I think one of the questions that I'm asked quite a bit is in in the light of the wider
instances of kind of church abuse and scandals in other institutions and organizations and
parachurch organizations a whole host of things is how do I know that I can trust entrust myself to
this another Christian institution for say you know three years or so um because you know we're
residential as well so it means living on site it's not just zooming in and in in light of that
loss of confidence just generally that is felt um it'd be great to hear just some of your reflections
on on how you know some of the things that you've just spoken about what would you like to say to
someone who might be listening to this and thinking you know I'd quite like to go to you know college
but oh gosh how do I know that they're just not going to be exactly the same as everyone else
that I've read about or that I've personally experienced yeah what kind of things would you
want to share with them yeah I think it can be both because it could be both that or someone who's
allowed to carry on in certain kinds of ways in the wrong kinds of ways so it's both those
things um no institution is perfect number one because we're all a bunch of sinful people but
there are still things that you can do in ways you can operate that um because you have a passion
for the Lord I do think there's a fundamental question about kindness is one thing and humility
is the other humility is putting your hand up when you get something wrong and um so cultivating that
at every level that it's okay to say sorry I was talking to someone ministering a church who said
he'd been involved in Christian ministry for 12 years he'd never heard a church leader apologize
it was a major crisis for them just to realize that the cultures he'd been part of and sometimes
led in had been um so unhealthy in that sense so that I want to put my hand up I want to know not
um I sent an email last week to a church of England official and it was sharper than it should
have been I can lots of reasons why I might have done it I was thrilled that someone raised it with
me they'd read and I said I first of all when I spoke to church for your minister I said the
first person I said before I go any further I want to apologize to you I'm I said it's something I
should not have said it was not okay I'm very sorry I owe an apology full stop there are actually a
bunch of reasons I could have talked about like pressure of email that's not relevant because
I'm sorry about or I'm sorry if or I'm sorry that you feel they're not real apologies the only
apologies you just take ownership and you you acknowledge it you regret it and you disown it
and you know until and try and put it right that's anything else is not a proper apology
and so that's the first thing is that that's got to be everywhere that we operate
but that means that for it to be safe to do that you've got to know that that's something
welcoming that would be jumped on so therefore it's about a cultural thing it's about saying we're
a learning culture not a blame culture if people are okay to put their hands up and say that
and and that but that needs to be developed and grown over a period of time it doesn't happen
overnight and there's one person who I used to be mentored by said you can tell a culture by the
best thing you celebrate and the worst thing you tolerate and that's for all of us it's then you
can't impose it is what you cultivate and celebrate and I celebrate when someone says you know I got
something wrong I'm very sorry because I think that's only then have we got a chance for it to
be a safe place to be open and to be vulnerable to develop trust and we need to be look to be
authentic and trustworthy that's what it's about because if we're not that people long after long
after people have left their ministry settings people have forgotten what you did they've forgotten
what you said they will remember who you were and that's it's who we are in Christ is the most
important thing of course we want pure theology going to the church because they go hand in hand
but one thing is really I'm getting a bit carried away because I really care passionately about this
one thing really saddened me is we had so much emphasis over the years on right theology but as
far as I can see right theology leads to right practice and if our practice isn't right our
theology must be wrong but no one seems to make that reverse engineering jump and say what have
I got wrong in my theology somewhere that means like that I behave like this and no one calls me
out and this is okay well I want to say that I really appreciated the fact that when I said
something in a meeting that you heard and I hadn't noticed that it sounded unkind you were kind
enough graciously to point out to me what I'd said so that I could take ownership and say sorry
and I really appreciate that because it's there's an authenticity about you saying what's the
the the worst thing we tolerate and that implies in a kind way being being willing to
have those conversations but to have those you've got to do for me you've got to do that out of a
place of a kindness which is you've got someone's best interests at heart you're not point score
you're not skull you know it's and that you're willing to hear every bit of that yourself and
that's part you know it's not just here I am as the new principal the new boss telling you all so
and so what should and shouldn't happen I want this to be a collectively owned thing because
that's what the values are something that's collectively owned and not imposed and you
can't impose them you can encourage them and foster them and and you have to lead by example
on them but you can't impose them and I saw that in Keswick it was an immense privilege to work
with the team in Keswick talked with the questions why on earth I came here it was incredibly sad to
leave I love them all right it's incredibly sad to leave but it was really special to see be part
it was a real privilege part of that ministry and to see the Lord bless it amazingly you alluded to
the your understanding that there are a lot of pressures on residential theological training
and we we have students who aren't residential we have part-time students we have and we're so
glad to have them as well but do you want to expand a little bit on on what are your thoughts
so far on how to keep helping people see the value of full-time expensive residential I mean
relationally expensive if people are going to move and and in some sense disconnect and and
and pile their things into a van and come here for a time and but certainly also financially
expensive yeah how are you beginning to pass that one out and and and engage with people about it
so I that's a great question there's so much to say I mean
if you have the chance to do so do residentially and there are amazing bursaries enable that to
happen I'd really encourage it but I certainly wouldn't want to be if the oh well in that case
what's their point in learning and growing because he wants me a place he wants people who
is as well thought through with the gifts the opportunities the Lord has given to go as far as
we can go with the things that we've got and the gifts that we've got so I'm absolutely not a kind
of a residential what's the word um it's either this or nothing yeah you know it's just that
somehow you've um you're not worth if you haven't done this it's absolutely not the case
but if you can and do um why do I think it's really precious um I think you can do some things that
you can't otherwise do so it's cost is it costly in time it's costly in terms of disruption in
money and in some cases for some it might be too costly not to in the sense they're too
as I mentioned one of the things is about character formation and growth the chance to
work over a sustained period of time with a personal tutor you're slightly outside of the
networks and the zone comfort zones that you're in which is actually a healthy way my daughter
just come through Sandhurst and um she it was a one-year residential training she's now joined
the royal tank regiment she's on she's and you got her number if you really if you cause trouble
I know it's so um but they recognise that there's some things that you can accomplish and do there
in that sustained focused out of your environment it's not you can't do ongoing training in your
context she's got more training specific to tank regiment now where she is but it's much more
there are certain things where you're out of the setting you're in you have a chance of some sense
of critical distance you can cover subjects and do things you wouldn't otherwise do I mean for her
it was four nights sleepless and digging trenches in the middle of the brecon beacons or whatever
and so fair play to her and but the sense in which you have a chance to engage with a broader
faculty who all have got love christ slightly different perspectives on different things
different personalities how does unity work how do you how do they agree well and disagree well
how do you see some of the relational things modeled that in other settings in churches you'll
fragment over how do you work those things through so you've got that kind of thing about how you
can grow it's like you grow in your character you can you can have the chance to focus on
church history what how was the holy spirit inspiring people from the past and how did they
tackle similar things in the past and what can we learn from that and why are we where we are today
and how can we learn from that and what have people thought about this in the past what does
the doctrines that have come together how are they fashioned and how does that shape the reading of
the bible and how does this reading the bible shape my doctrine a chance to linger and pause
in those places chance to learn biblical languages and the reality is for hundreds of years it's got
a proven track record of delivering and people one of the things I noticed about trying to find
speakers for the keswick convention was I would often come back to oak hill graduates or people
who've done residential training not because I'm um think that's the only thing but because they
were they had the depth and the character and the ability to communicate well in a consistent kind
of way and so of course others can do that from other settings but but so that was something about
why I think it's really worth and you make lifelong friends as part of it I'm in a
student support group of five of us we have whatsapp this morning in fact we're all over the world and
sustain each other ministry over 30 years and all of us have been out of the ministry but for that
group and of course if you're married and you've got spouse you can also have spouses and kids can
also connect with others as well make those friends we know I guess um we're coming towards
the end but um we know that many people watching this podcast will have um already some association
with a college and they might be wondering um uh how they could be praying for us or how they could
be rooting for us or or is there anything that they can do if they're already feeling quite
enthusiastic about perhaps some of the things you've said what what uh what would be helpful
what would what might you ask of them you know thank you well thank you so much I mean praying
would be the one thing um because again I've watched from keswick I should have known before
then really the Lord does amazing things when I'm at the end of my tether and he's got he's got
things and I should have wished other than that earlier and so on but I've seen him do amazing
things almost to stand back and watch and take your frail things that you bring maybe survive
loads to fish you know bring that little thing and God does something amazing so praying is
great and we're grateful for people who provide support financially but the particular thing is
is students and just you know make use of this extraordinary resource that's here I think that's
what I'd say it's just great colleagues that are here and a great library a lovely location and just
make use of it and there are different ways that can be done not just through formal training we're
developing some continuing professional development offerings as well and check out the website
have grab a leaflet pass it around to someone and because we really have a heart to make a
difference for 950 000 Christians in London and it's such an opportunity that's here to nothing
of the rest of the world well James thank you very much indeed I think probably said it too many
times during this podcast but we are so pleased that you're here thank you very much for for
leaving because it bringing your family up reading and yeah I'm really enjoying your leadership here
there are lots of other previous episodes of this podcast available online and look out for our
next one which will be coming out hopefully in about a month's time thanks so much for listening