Who Was J. H. Jowett? The Preacher of Carr's Lane and Fifth Avenue
John Henry Jowett was an English Congregationalist preacher who lived from 1863 to 1923. He grew up in a working family in Halifax, Yorkshire, and became one of the most famous preachers of his day. He served four churches: St. James's in Newcastle, Carr's Lane in Birmingham, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York, and Westminster Chapel in London. Crowds came to hear him on both sides of the Atlantic. His sermons and short devotional books were printed again and again, and many of them are still read for their warmth, their pictures drawn from daily life, and their constant pointing to Christ.
Here's a closer look at his life, his message, and which of his books to read first.
A Yorkshire boyhood
Jowett was born on August 25, 1863, near Halifax, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father, Josiah, was a tailor and draper. The family attended Square Chapel, a Congregational church in Halifax, and the minister there, Enoch Mellor, made a deep impression on the boy.
Accounts of his life say that he was first headed for the law. A remark from a Sunday school teacher, who told him she had hoped he would enter the ministry, turned him toward the pulpit instead. He spoke warmly of his parents all his life, and he once said that when he wanted to think of a Christian man, he thought of his father.
He trained for the ministry at Airedale College in Bradford, studied at the University of Edinburgh, and then spent time at Mansfield College, Oxford.
Newcastle and Birmingham
In 1889 Jowett became pastor of St. James's Congregational Church in Newcastle upon Tyne. The next year he married Lizzie Ann Winpenny. Large congregations came to hear him almost from the start, and he kept up a habit of early-morning study, at his desk about the time the working men of the city were going to their jobs.
After about six years he was called to Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham, one of the best-known pulpits in England, to follow the great R. W. Dale. It was a hard place for a young man to fill, but Jowett filled it. He stayed for some sixteen years, and his preaching drew people from all over the city. He also founded a mission center in a poor district nearby, and he led the Congregational Union and the national council of the Free Churches.
Many of his best-known books come from these years, including The Passion for Souls (1905), The High Calling (1909) and Things That Matter Most, published in 1913.
New York and London
In 1911, after repeated invitations, Jowett crossed the Atlantic to become pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. Crowds filled the building, and many had to be turned away. The next year he gave the Lyman Beecher lectures on preaching at Yale, which became The Preacher: His Life and Work.
He preached through the years of the First World War in New York. The Whole Armour of God (1916) comes from that time: sermons on the spiritual battle of Ephesians 6, preached while news came from the trenches of France and Belgium.
Accounts of his life say he never felt fully at home in America. In 1918 he returned to London as minister of Westminster Chapel, following G. Campbell Morgan. Illness forced him to retire in 1922. That same year he was made a Companion of Honour, an unusual honor for a Free Church minister. He died on December 19, 1923.
What he preached
Jowett didn't build his sermons around arguments. He built them around pictures. He'd take a phrase of Scripture, turn it in the light, and press it on the heart with an image a reader wouldn't forget. In his daily readings he wrote:
The fear of the Lord is the soul's eastern window. It faces the place of the dawn.
Come Ye Apart, February
At the center of everything was the love of God in Christ. Things That Matter Most opens with a question about the biggest thing a person can ever think about, and he answers it plainly:
The biggest thing you and I will ever know is the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Things That Matter Most, chapter I, The Illimitable Love of God
He believed that love has to be caught, not manufactured:
Christ loves love into us. His love kindles ours as the sun kindles all the fires upon the planet.
Come Ye Apart, October
He was also plain that following Christ costs something. In The Passion for Souls he told Christian workers that the cross of Christ must be matched by hearts that care:
The gospel of a broken heart demands the ministry of bleeding hearts.
The Passion for Souls, chapter II, The Disciple's Sacrifice
And in Sharing His Sufferings, first published as The School of Calvary, he wrote:
The quality of our fellowship with the Lord is best revealed, not by our capacity for joy, but by our capacity for suffering.
Sharing His Sufferings, chapter IV, The Neglected Cup
A preacher who worked hard
Jowett's polish could hide how hard he worked. His Yale lectures are blunt about it. He told young ministers to keep regular hours in the study and to be as systematic as a businessman. He had no patience with sermons thrown together on Saturday night:
Preaching that costs nothing accomplishes nothing. If the study is a lounge the pulpit will be an impertinence.
The Preacher: His Life and Work, chapter IV, The Preacher in His Study
The same lectures show where his power came from. He was honest that prayer was a struggle for him, and he insisted that a minister's public prayers grow out of his private ones:
Men never learn to pray in public: they learn in private.
The Preacher: His Life and Work, chapter V, The Preacher in His Pulpit
Why he's still read
Jowett is still read because he makes old truths feel close. His chapters are short, often only a few pages. He writes about worry, regret, weakness, friendship, prayer and peace, and he always brings the reader back to Jesus. Preachers read him to learn how to make a text live. Ordinary Christians read him because a single page can lift a whole day.
Where to start
TheWay Library has nineteen of his books, all free to read. If you're new to Jowett, start with Come Ye Apart, a year of short daily readings, many ending with a prayer. For a book to read straight through, try Things That Matter Most or his meditations on Philippians, The High Calling. For comfort in a hard season, try The Silver Lining. If you're a pastor or Bible teacher, read The Preacher: His Life and Work and The Passion for Souls.
Our guide to J. H. Jowett's books explains what each one is and where it fits, and our collection of J. H. Jowett quotes gathers his best lines with their sources. You'll find all his books on the J. H. Jowett author page.