langham
Many years ago my mother gave me a picture for my birthday. It is a sketch of that quintessential English scene—a towering medieval cathedral overlooking a tree-ringed cricket field. As she gave it to me, she announced, “Your two loves”. I could tell she was very pleased with herself! Church. Cricket. It’s true. They are…
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In my travels with Langham, it is not that unusual never to leave the venue for the event for which I have come. On this occasion, in Lima, not only did I go nowhere, the venue itself was barely ten minutes from the airport! So, four nights in beautiful Peru and never moving further than…
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Under God’s good hand, I entered my 15th year with Langham Preaching on the 1st April—and now am inching towards ten years as programme director. Across these years the focus has been on establishing a Global Leadership Team (GLT). In the final days of March, we met at Rivendell, on Bowen Island, just outside Vancouver…
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The paper was bright orange. The printing was faded, originating in pre-photocopier, Gestetner days. There were two sheets. I still have them, somewhere in those boxes two metres from me… As a young pastor these sheets of paper captivated me. Developed by what was called the Association of Church Missionary Committees (ACMC), they described a…
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Ethiopia and its people have such a long history with God. Whether it be all those references to Cush and Nubia in the Old Testament, or the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the court of King Solomon, or that story of Philip with the Ethiopian (a favourite, reminding us that the gospel reached…
READ MOREEarly in 2020 Myanmar was hit by a double-strike: first the coup, then the covid. And now, through 2022, and still living with so many restraints, the preaching movement seems to be making up for lost time. As I went through the reports and the facebook updates, I counted six training seminars already this year —…
READ MOREI’ve been working on my Introduction to Preaching course at Carey Baptist College (Auckland) in this coming semester. It will be my 33rd consecutive year of teaching preaching at the seminary/college level. It is hard to believe — and to keep me evolving I like to add something fresh each time… This year it is topical…
READ MOREOver the years, I haven’t written much about my work with Langham on this blog. There are a couple of reasons. One is that for the best part of a decade our lives were focused in South Asia and so issues like security and visas were on our minds. The other is that since COVID…
READ MORENot so long ago I failed an online Intercultural Competency quiz. Yikes. That does not sound so good for someone in my line of work. It is embarassing. I resolved to broaden my reading and have set a summer goal of reading books originating from different continents. This past summer it was Africa. I made…
READ MOREWhen Langham Preaching’s Global Leadership Team meets, Lord-willing, in the UK in June it will be 1163 days since we’ve been in-person together. During this covidian season we’ve gathered on Zoom for two hours a week, three weeks out of four. We’ve grown closer together, while apart, for various reasons — most notably God’s gracious…
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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.