church
This past week I made my first trip back to Carey Baptist College to be interviewed as the weekly community lunch came to a close. The interview covered all sorts of topics. Early the next morning I received an email from someone whose opinion I respect, suggesting that I had been “strident” and “disparaging” in…
READ MOREIn today’s climate when a book is endorsed by both Keller and Kimball, Driscoll and Bell you do tend to take a second look. In my case I decided to read it. Jim Belcher, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (IVP, 2009). As always seems to be the case nowadays, the subtitle…
READ MOREOne of the most common things I find myself saying to younger people is the importance of building a network of friendships where their various friends can be located in various concentric circles. In the core circle are those friends with whom we are close. In the outer circle are those friends who are a…
READ MORESome of the most probing insights into the (ir)relevance of the church in society come from missionaries returning home after years away in distant – and very different – lands. While they think they are way out of touch, I have learned to listen to the startling things they have to say. It happened last…
READ MOREI have been thinking a bit about Tiger Woods recently… The dynamics at work in public and private life are worth considering. Celebrities like Tiger have no qualms about using the media to magnify their lives on the global stage, increasing their fame and fortune as they do so. But the necessary consequence of this…
READ MOREIt happened again. Sitting in yet another Majority World church context – this time the Graduation Ceremony of the Phnom Penh Bible School in Cambodia – and I find it staring me in the face from the front wall in huge font. The whole focus is on maturity: “help your people grow in Christ”. This…
READ MOREI don’t usually rehash sermons on this blog but on this occasion I have found the four imperatives in 2 Timothy 2.1-7 to be so compelling – particularly as I work away at the interface between the Post-Christian West (P-CW) and Post-Western Christianity (P-WC)… “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2.1)…
READ MOREWhile on the subject of major influences in my life… Dave and Angie Andrews (based now in Brisbane) came to live with us in New Delhi when I was barely a teenager. They view my parents as kinda like surrogate parents so I guess that makes them kinda like surrogate siblings – and they’ve been…
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 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 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.