langham
At our age, an overnight flight leads to an afternoon nap. Once that was over, Barby and I wandered out onto the streets of Yangon. No map to follow. Nowhere to go, in particular. From across the road we stumbled across this building. Just another church in all its faded glory? With more pigeons outside…
READ MOREYes – another book on preaching, pitched primarily for people making a start. (I’ve tried to surf this recent wave for readers – here, here, here, and here!). Jonathan Lamb’s Preaching Matters (IVP, 2014) has arrived. I read the book in one sitting – or, one lying, to be accurate – early one jet-lagged morning in…
READ MOREUsing a tap to turn off a waterfall in the monsoon. That is how these twin books felt like to me. The authors are trying to contain trends that have swept through society and church and already taken control. It is too late – surely?! Maybe. But I am happy to help them turn off…
READ MOREOffering critique is always tricky. While it is possible that a preacher can develop without being critiqued, it is not possible for a trainer of preachers to do so. They must learn to give and receive critique. In Langham our goal is to develop trainers and so it is critical that we think about critique.…
READ MOREAfter nine months in my new role with Langham, it was great to gather the global team together for a week – at last. We stayed at Salutation Yard in Skelton, on the edge of the Lake District in the UK. Salutation Yard (I stayed behind the upstairs windows on the left) The primary purpose…
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I have just returned from my first ever visit to Latin America. The 43hr trip included a touchdown in La Paz (remaining on the plane). Within 10min of the plane door being open I could tell we were at 14,000 feet. Then as we took off, just before dawn, I could see Lake Titicaca (look…
READ MOREMany years ago I tasted a guinness. In my work situation I found myself articulating a minority perspective and it was causing tension within and conflict without. I happened to have the briefest of conversations with Os Guinness while in the US and he had the simplest of advice. I have passed it onto numerous…
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 MOREIf you hang around John Stott’s writings for awhile, you’ll soon discover he loved birds. Birding was his favourite hobby and a subject about which he had an encyclopedic knowledge. He wrote a delightful book – The Birds, Our Teachers – in which ornithology drifts across to ornitheology. What a difference an ‘e’ makes… This love for…
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 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.