This week, we talk with Rev. Dr. Scot Sherman, teaching pastor at City Church and executive director at the Newbigin House of Studies, about his beginnings at City Church, Lesslie Newbigin, favorite San Francisco eats, and the best kind of novel.
What drew you, in the beginning, to work with Fred to be part of City Church and launch Newbigin House?
My friendship with Fred goes back to 1991. I was involved in a church plant in New York City and Fred was one of a number of campus ministers who would bring their students to New York to see what was happening. We were the same age, and both fell in love with ministry in the city. I was in New York for a number of years, then pastored a church in Atlanta, and we remained friends during those year. Fred always had this vision that in secular place like San Francisco you really need in-depth discipleship. You also need institutions that are going to shape the culture. That's what he challenged me to come begin: spiritual formation and discipleship work at the church. Ultimately, though, it was around "paying it forward," stewarding what our mentors had give to us as young leaders. We asked, how can we take what was poured into us, and turn that around and pour that into the next generation of leaders?
What does the relationship of the Newbigin House of Studies to City Church look like?
Newbigin House is a ministry of City Church. The name gets at two really core values of City Church: Lesslie Newbigin, when he came back to Britain from being a missionary in India in the 1980s, he realized how secularized Britain had become. One of the things he understood at that time was that the church has to invest in the laity. Theological education cannot just be for the clergy--you really have to invest in the people. So at Newbigin House, we wanted to say that we would love to start deeply investing in young professionals, artists and cultural influencers who are going to commit and stay in this city. This isn't just a one-year program, but is actually the creation of a community of people who really love the city and know how to access the deeper sources of the historic Christian faith as they think about their work and their lives here. It's a ministry of the church to get behind that kind of a movement.
Secondly, there's this idea of believing that new churches are the primary way people come to Christ. They're the most evangelistically effective thing. So Newbigin House a partnership to try to work alongside the existing seminary to do what seminaries don't do so well, which is to train evangelists, train cultural apologists, train people who can think missionally. At the same time, we want to bring the strengths of the seminary here and also bring the strengths of a church like City Church to the denomination, and to the broader network of church planters.
What is it about Lesslie Newbigin that makes his understanding of the world and the gospel so captivating?
Newbigin talked about the fact that mission is at the very center of who God is. Christendom began to think about God in a very static way, in abstract categories. Newbigin saw that if you look at the Bible with fresh eyes, it is the story of a God in mission. He helped the sleepy church rediscover its identity; who God really is and, by extension, who we are and what we're called to be.
Okay, now onto some lighter questions. What is your favorite place to eat in San Francisco?
If someone else is paying, it's absolutely going to be Jardiniere. Otherwise, it's hard to beat breakfast at Brenda's French Soul Food--chicory coffee and the best biscuits in town.
What would your ideal vacation be?
I love going to great cities and drinking in the arts--visiting a great opera house, seeing a great museum--so my ideal vacation is a European city. Rome, London, Paris...and I do it as often as I can. My favorite museum, though, would be the Frick in New York City. I just love that place.
What are a few books that have been really formative for you? Both spiritual and books you like to read for fun.
Well, obviously I'm going to pick one by Lesslie Newbigin. His book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society was a very formative book for me--I read it for the first time twenty-five years ago, when it first came out. That was when the penny dropped. It gave a clear sense of the culture--this is where we are, and this is the clear message that this culture needs. Another one would be N.T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God. He's somebody who helped me understand what the gospels are really about: Who was Jesus and what was he doing?
My other passion is British detective fiction. My favorite mytery writer is a guy named Peter Robinson, and his character is Detective Chief Inspector Banks. They're really popular in the UK, and Robinson is actually Stephen King's favorite crime fiction writer.
Who makes up the Sherman family?
My wife Catherine is an artist--she is a quilter. She not only makes amazing quilts, but she teaches quilting. We have four sons--John, Ben, James and David. The two oldest are in college, and we have one in high school and one in middle school. They get along pretty well for the most part. But between those four and me, my poor wife is awash in a sea of testosterone!