book review
In recent months I have been discovering a treasure… Back in 1997, in the months leading up to taking on the principalship at Carey, God reassured me in His call through a (secular!) book called The Leadership Challenge (Kouzes and Posner). Its impact on me was enormous. Now in the months after finishing as Principal…
READ MORE[NB – I have added now the suggestions of readers to create my final ten selections] I guess you know the movie The Bucket List. A couple of old guys make a list of things they’d love to do before they kick-the-bucket and off they go and do them. I guess you’ve seen the big…
READ MOREThe ‘theology of the word’ is not where it needs to be today. Intimidated as we are by image and event, music and symbol, entertainment and short attention spans, and goodness only knows what else – we tend to lose our convictions about the Word of God and our appetite for it drains away as…
READ MOREOn this the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wilberforce, I offer my tribute by engaging with the biography written by former leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague – which I finished on Saturday.I have wondered about starting a WWW club for William Wilberforce Wannabees like myself but maybe I’ll settle for listing…
READ MORE“Have you read Claiborne’s book yet?”Finally, I am able to respond “Yes”. There is a lot to like about this book.1. There is that title. Ever since I read David Wenham’s The Parables of Jesus: pictures of revolution twenty years ago I have been partial to the use of the word ‘revolution’ as a contemporary…
READ MOREWhile it will not be everyone’s cup of chai I did enjoy reading Ramachandra Guha’s A Corner of a Foreign Field (Picador, 2002) on a recent return flight to the UK. As seems always to be the case, the sub-title says it all: “The Indian History of a British Sport”. The book tells the story…
READ MOREPsalm 120:1 following Psalm 119 (and its 176 verses) is like a tiny fern sitting next to a giant kauri (tree). And the stark contrast doesn’t stop with size. All but two verses (I think I am right on that one – my grandma used to tell me it was every verse, but she was…
READ MOREOver the past few years I’d have to rate The Next Christendom (Philip Jenkins) as the book which has had the biggest impact on me. So when I saw The Lost History of Christianity (HarperCollins, 2008), it was ordered immediately and then read immediately. I have so many other things I am meant to be…
READ MOREThis book by David Kinnaman gathers the outcomes of a three year study by The Barna Group into the way 16-29yr olds ‘outside’ the church perceive Christianity. The book uncovers a hostility and skepticism towards the church unheard of in any previous generation. This serious image problem for the church centers around it being: (a)…
READ MOREIf your shelves are lined with books with names on their spines like Burke, Pagitt, Ward, Chalke, and Tomlinson… If the links on your laptop suggest you connect readily to Miller, Bell, McLaren, Rollins and McManus… Then you owe it to yourself – and to those you influence- to read Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck,…
READ MOREAbout Me
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.