book review
“It is sad that the book had to be written”. This is how a friend responded when I mentioned that I was reading Marcus Honeysett’s Powerful Leaders? When Church Leadership Goes Wrong and How to Prevent It. Why did he respond in that manner? While Honeysett avoids naming names, the book is prompted by the…
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They are remembered for everything they aren’t. That is a clumsy paraphrase of an observation JI Packer once made about the Puritans. What comes to mind today with a word like ‘puritanical’ is such a long way from what the Puritans actually believed and how they lived—more than 400 years ago. A long way? From…
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When you are on a summer holiday in a small-ish house with a large-ish number of people and a cyclone shows up, it is time to be creative. Barby came to the rescue, with her latest purchase from the ‘adult colouring books’ (ACBs) genre. While they were a craze a decade ago, Barby has been…
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Like many of you, I am always ready to engage with new insights on leadership. This book draws on “the great wayfinding tradition of the Polynesian navigators” (xiii). Most of you live far from Polynesia, so please stick with me through unfamiliar surroundings! It will be worth it… Drawing near to it There is a…
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There can be no doubt about what is on Vince Bantu’s mind with his book, A Multitude of All Peoples. It is sitting there, blunt and bald, in the opening two sentences of his Introduction: “Christianity is and always has been a global religion. For this reason, it is important never to think of…
READ MOREI’ve been working on my Introduction to Preaching course at Carey Baptist College (Auckland) in this coming semester. It will be my 33rd consecutive year of teaching preaching at the seminary/college level. It is hard to believe — and to keep me evolving I like to add something fresh each time… This year it is topical…
READ MORE“Oops!… I did it again.” Yep — reading a book while pursuing every imaginable Wikipedia, Google Maps and YouTube distraction. Why is the story so compelling? It’s been called the ‘Stalingrad of the East’. ‘Britain’s Thermopylae’. More significantly, ‘in 2013, it was voted as Britain’s greatest battle after a debate at the National Army…
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Over the years I have enjoyed taking two pilgrimages. One is to Rangihoua Bay, about 200km north of Auckland — and Marsden Cross, the site of the first preaching of the gospel here in Aotearoa New Zealand, in 1814. On one occasion, as a way to celebrate my 50th birthday, 30 friends joined me in…
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There is so much to like about God. Right near the top of my list is the way he works in anyone and everyone, helping shape them into all they are designed to be. Then he invites, or calls, them to join him in making the world all it is designed to be. He is…
READ MORENot so long ago I failed an online Intercultural Competency quiz. Yikes. That does not sound so good for someone in my line of work. It is embarassing. I resolved to broaden my reading and have set a summer goal of reading books originating from different continents. This past summer it was Africa. I made…
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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.