langham
With my peripatetic lifestyle, there is a singular joy attached to landing in Auckland. I am home again. Children (and grandchildren) are not far away. Earlier this morning there was the added anticipation that a quick ‘de-planing’ and passage through immigration created the possibility of seeing my daughter (Lys) and her daughter (Lucia) before they…
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It jolted me. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Waking up in Egypt on the first day of our first training seminar in the region and my Bible reading greets me with these words, the very first words I read: Woe to those who go down to Egypt (Isaiah 31.1a). Already a bit burdened with apprehension,…
READ MOREThe Health & Safety folks in New Zealand would have a stroke on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Fences are few and far between. Books have been written to make those Health & Safety faces nod up and down knowingly: Over the Edge: Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in the Most Famous of…
READ MOREI don’t know my icons – but I am willing to learn from my friends. So when Riad finished his devotion (on living with Habakkuk amidst the Syrian crisis) with an old Coptic/Egyptian icon, I leaned forward in my chair. A painting on wood. From Egypt in the 5th century. Jesus is standing alongside Abbot Menas, the…
READ MOREI love the local church but I do not often love the local church’s mission statement. Lots of reasons. Here are two. The mission statement seems to owe more to the corporate world, than the biblical world. It is part of the response to this chronic fear that the local church might be slipping out-of-date…
READ MOREA couple of weeks ago I shared my admiration for the person and ministry of Charles Simeon, reawakened by a book that I had read. This renewed a conversation with Mark Meynell, the leader of our ministry in Europe & the Caribbean – and in the recent past, a member of the pastoral team at All…
READ MORECharles Simeon was a big part of my life through my twenties. Like many before me, I was introduced to him in the writings of John Stott, a man who lived his life with a similar symmetry more than a century later. As a young pastor I read the biographies, capturing numerous illustrations on my…
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Corruption. Prosperity teaching. ‘Big Man’ leadership. The evil trio. The devil’s trinity. Everywhere I go in this job, it does not take long for these three to surface in the conversation. I am just home from a visit to Ghana, and the combo was present there, too. It started at the airport, on arrival in…
READ MOREWe’ve had our fill of separations – or, so we thought. All those agonising good-byes to parents during our boarding school years. UGH. Goodness me – Barby has not lived within two long-haul flights of her parents since she was in her mid-teens (and that was when she was at boarding school!). But as we…
READ MORESaying thanks. Building trust. The first principles of leadership. Study them deeply and then do them creatively and repetitively and you will be well on your way in leadership roles, large or small. Take trust, for example. How do you build it? Well, it operates like a bank account. The deposits are made early –…
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.