I’ve been a big admirer of the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Carey Baptist College for some years. It is not too surprising because the pioneering energy for the Centre was provided by Mike Crudge, who was on the staff at Carey back in my time—and everything he did, he did with excellence.

Over the last year or so the current director, Glenn Melville, has been chatting with me about offering a little series of webinars. Not quite my scene, but I have relented 🙂 — and it occurred to me this week that readers of this blog might be interested.

All the details on content, cost, registration, time etc can be found here.

The burden on my heart is that in the challenge with what is loosely called ‘the secular’ we need more voices around the table—and I am going to draw on ones that have impacted me over the years.

Biblical voices. From that first taste, all those years ago, I have loved unpacking the Scriptures. Oftentimes I find that our commitment to the Bible can appear to be more theoretical, than it is practical. We kinda assume it, rather than articulate it. This must not be so! It really does provide the way forward for us—especially, in these webinars anyway, in the pictures it uses of the people of God living in the world.

Historical voices. I still can’t believe that I chose to do chemistry at University, all those years ago. What was I thinking? I guess God’s sovereign hand was at work in it all—and, of course, God does call people into vocations focused on chemistry. But I just love history, although I am more of a fan than an expert. And history, especially the distant history of the first centuries of the church, contains voices that need to be prized in this conversation.

Cultural voices. I can’t decide whether to use the word ‘cultural’, or ‘geographical’, because here my ears are attuned especially to peoples far away. Aotearoa-New Zealand is blessed with diverse cultures nearby—Māori, Pasifika and diaspora communities. These nearby voices are already valued and heard, to varying degrees. Here I want to draw on these last 15 years of wandering the world beyond Aotearoa-New Zealand, the West and the Global North (phrases that somehow refer to us, ‘down under’ in the Far South as well!) in my life with Langham Preaching—again, not so much as an expert, but as an observer and reflector.

It is as if my goal is to take you into a room, introduce you to a whole bunch of people around the table, in the hope that some of them might intrigue you enough to cause you to linger longer with them and so be helped in the way you live your life for Jesus.

nice chatting

Paul