church
It is more than twenty years ago now. My first effort at a series called ‘Brightening the Post-Christian Blues’ – through 1 Peter. The opportunities this letter creates for intersections of Word and World are striking. I love 1 Peter. It remains my favourite book from which to teach and preach… Then along comes Everyday Church by Tim Chester…
READ MOREI have a friend who has been to Myanmar more than sixty times. Another friend is pushing twenty. My sister and her husband are closing in on ten visits. As for me, it has been only three … But that is enough to be sobered by what I’ve seen. There is something particularly evil about…
READ MORESome conversations are for keeping. Dinner with Conrad… in England. It was a cold wet night in Sheffield. I was perched at the end of a long table in a restaurant on a night set aside to celebrate the contribution of Jonathan & Margaret Lamb to Langham Partnership. Next to me was a new member…
READ MOREHi, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where you are. But I do know that there are heaps of you out there and I find myself thinking about you a lot. So much so that I thought I’d write you a letter. First let me try to ensure that we are talking…
READ MOREI had a bit of a chuckle as I reflected on this one. Theologically, I do Love the Ls – Lausanne and Langham. I guess it has something to do with their common denominator, one John Stott. While Langham preoccupies my life at this current time, I have kept missing out on Lausanne for some…
READ MOREI was seduced by the cover. As I walked through Heathrow the other day, its extremist image and glaring headline captured me. I bought. I read. “The War on Christians: the global persecution of Christians is the unreported catastrophe of our time” The article commences with three observations about the landscape of anti-Christian persecution today,…
READ MOREWe’ve signed up for tata-sky here in India. A little cricket here, a movie over there – that kind of thing. So far with Hollywood movies there seems to be some censoring with scenes cut out. But I do not know enough questionable movies well enough to be able to tell quite yet. Certainly every…
READ MOREOver my first two early jet-lagged mornings in our new home in Bangalore, I devoured (choosing my words carefully) Stuart Lange’s A Rising Tide: Evangelical Christianity in New Zealand (1930-1965). When I told him I was going to miss the book launch by a few days, Stuart popped around to our house with a signed…
READ MORETaking a road trip through New Zealand, seeing the beauty in both sights and friends, reminds me of the many things I will miss when we leave this country (as we expect to do in a couple of months). However one thing will not be missed. Being casual. It is not difficult to trace its…
READ MOREI am a bit odd. I know it. I don’t complain about Auckland traffic (because compared with much of the world, it is pretty good). I’d welcome a day when an old song is prized above a new song, particularly on Sundays (because the lyrics so often voice a well-worn trail deep into the human…
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.