church
“God wants your being more than he wants your doing.”I heard it again last week – and it was one too many times. Sorry, folks – but that statement is a load of rubbish. I just do not know what New Testament these people are reading. Not only is the NT full of the importance…
READ MOREIt remains the most helpful mission concept I have encountered in the past twenty years. “WOW – that’s a big call, Paul.” But it is true … and it is so simple. Devised by the late Harold Turner (the Kiwi Newbigin), the suggestion is that for mission to be effective (under God’s gracious hand, of…
READ MOREThe TV show ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ has thrown up another delightful story. A year ago I posted the clip with little Andrew Johnston (Watch and Weep – 17 April 2008) and now Susan Boyle has arrived. Susan surpasses Andrew in that when Andrew opened his mouth everyone was with him – when Susan opens her…
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 MOREOur 25 years with a NZ-focus in our ministry lives is drawing to a close. I am a sentimental-type and find myself doing a lot of reflecting on these years – and have even been given the opportunity to do so in the company of others. (a) The first opportunity came with the Baptist Historical…
READ MOREThe children have given me the permission to re-post this link. They had been watching a TV preacher go on about fatherhood and then digress to speak about how God wants us to own multiple houses … and so on a lazy afternoon on Waipu Beach with too much time on their hands, they decided…
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 MORETwo funerals in five days. Mike (aged 27) died of cancer. Tony (aged 29) drowned in the flash Mangetepopo flood that also took the lives of six of his Elim Christian College students. Both ‘orders of service’ from the funerals are in front of me as I write. Mike was a close relative of a…
READ MOREHere are some reflections on the 5th New Zealand Christian Leaders’ Congress held last week in Waikanae. I had mixed feelings, with question marks living alongside exclamation marks. Four Exclamation Marks: 1. We have some remarkable leaders in New Zealand. Kim Workman, soon to retire as Director of Prison Fellowship (NZ), is one of my…
READ MOREMaybe someone can help me with one of the great mysteries of church life in NZ for me. Why is it that within the ‘protestant’ scene (particularly the Baptist one, for me) the word “Calvin” seems to be a dirtier ‘C’ word than the word “Catholic”? On which side of the Reformation did we actually…
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.