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It was 1984. After finishing my classroom work for an MDiv from TEDS, Barby and I flew from Newark to London on People Express ($99pp). We were looking forward to a few weeks with my parents at All Nations Christian College in Ware (UK), where Dad was the principal. He met us at the airport…
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I grew up with My Fair Lady—and for you younger ones, that is not a reference to my mother or one of my sisters. It is a movie, and like a number of movies from my childhood—Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines also comes to mind—they can be rather jarring to ear and eye…
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Football helps me train preachers. See, when you speak to me about football—or, ‘footie’—I need to know where your feet are before I can understand what you mean. Are your feet in Ireland, or Brazil, or the USA, or NZ—or in crazy Australia? It must be the most fanatical sporting nation in the world. Within…
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Having been born in 1959, I don’t remember much about the 1960s. But I have heard a lot. Hippies. Drugs. Rock ‘n Roll. Assassinations. Moon-walking. A quick trip across to ChatGPT informs me immediately that it was ‘a transformative decade across the world’—marked by the civil rights and feminist movements, Cold War tensions, consumerism and…
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Saturday was a rough ol’ day for our Amaliya. It was her birthday. She was sick—and sick enough for her birthday party to be postponed. Grandma and Grandpa popped-by later in the afternoon to give her a hug and some gifts … … and then she gave us a gift. Between taking our mouthfuls of…
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Abomey Calavi, Benin I’ve had three 50+ hour door-to-door trips by plane over the years. This was the fourth one. It was after midnight on the Saturday when I was finally able to put my head on a pillow—but not before our driver/host asked if I would preach the next morning. Yikes. Not for the…
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If saying that “Barby and I grew up together in India” is of interest to some people, then “We met before we can remember” tends to be of interest to most. The first time we met was probably in a church creche of some kind at Kellogg when I was about three and Barby was…
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I have vague memories from school of a chap called Milton writing a poem called Paradise Lost. Well, this is not that Milton. Nor is this that paradise. And this sure ain’t no poem. This is Giles Milton telling the story of the ‘lost paradise’ of Smyrna (Izmir today). Here, watch some of it for…
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I do believe that I have stumbled upon a new favourite author. Andrew Wilson. My appetite was whet in 2023 by his Incomparable and since then I’ve been making a meal of it. the appetizer This book booklet is just 64 pages! Eleven chapters, each of which could be read aloud in less than five…
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It was my very first training seminar with Langham Preaching. April 2009. We were based at the OMF Guest House in Chiangmai, Thailand. As I wandered the property, I came across this striking quotation on one of the walls: So striking, in fact, that I stopped to take its photo! But is it really true?…
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the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.