family
This morning I received word that I have fulfilled all the requirements for my DMin… YIPPEE! It has been quite a story. It starts way back in 1985 when I was required, as a brand new ‘probationary’ minister with the NZ Baptists, to write an essay in my first year as a pastor. I was…
READ MOREI have been thinking deep thoughts and feeling deep felts. There is Mary (not her real name). Mary and I worked together for seven years in a previous life. I think she would say that we were good friends. She had been a missionary overseas. There were little glimpses of life being difficult for her back then and…
READ MOREBarby (my wife) was speaking with Gwennie (my mum)… The subject was parenting. It is interesting how both our sets of parents have always been reluctant to talk about the secret of parenting. They’d run a mile before taking a seminar on the subject. I guess they feel the task is never over and that…
READ MOREI am a timid chap. Always have been. Always will be. If I was to look at the sum of all my fears, dogs and flying figure regularly in the top ten. Not without good reason, I might add. As a little newspaper-delivery boy I had an awful experience of being bitten – and I’ve…
READ MORELast night was a night to remember. Our son Stephen organised a knowledge-acquiring, fund-raising event focused on the DR of Congo. He has been in and out of the homes of about seven Congolese families in Auckland over recent months and they were well-represented at the event. Then there were church friends, members of the…
READ MOREThere is plenty of wisdom in Ecclesiastes, nowhere more than in ch7.2: “you’ll learn more at a funeral than at a party” (paraphrase mine). I’ve been going to a few funerals recently and learning lots as I do so. Last week it was Dr John Allen, remembered from my teenage days at Mt Albert Baptist…
READ MOREAfter a long battle with Parkinson’s, Dad died at home yesterday in the company of his family – with the sun streaming through the window as the Hallelujah Chorus filled the room. If you would like to read the story of Dad’s life, people around the world have been appreciating a little book by Mary…
READ MOREBarby and I are in the USA for a week celebrating her father’s 90th birthday with family members. It is just the third time in thirty years that we have gathered like this. The family’s Christian roots lie with the Mennonites… A highlight for me has been the visit to the Menno-Hof (kinda like a…
READ MOREDenver and Dayton will never again be the same for me. Yesterday – on the two hour flight from one to the other – I read (with Barby doing the same, over my shoulder!) through Charles & Joanne Hewlett’s Hurting Hope: what parents feel when their children suffer.. Here and there we shed a tear.…
READ MOREIt is eighty years today since the Napier earthquake – so that means my mum must be turning eighty today too. And that she is… I’ve always loved being introduced by reference to my relationships. Joseph’s Dad. Diane’s brother. Barby’s husband. Someone’s teacher. Rachel’s boss. Martin’s friend. Someone’s principal. You get the idea. Well –…
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.