leadership
Last week I had the privilege of opening the Word of God at a pastors’ conference (link here). A room with an (early morning) view — MICamp, Waitetoko, Lake Taupō With the sad and shameful stories that have grabbed headlines and hurt people, I tried to address the topic of character-driven leadership. Learning to lead…
READ MOREIt is 500 days (exactly) since we left Bangalore, with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. What a week that was, back in March 2020. After five months without any international travel for Langham (my longest period out of the skies), I had five complex trips planned in the following three months — and I…
READ MOREMy first brush with Ernest Shackleton did not end happily. I was on one of those long, lonely trips — and feeling so inadequate as a leader. With me to read, I had Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer. But I felt battered by it. It made things worse. I don’t do heroic…
READ MORE‘On June 5, 2001, Eugene scratched the final sentence…’ (242). On this very day, twenty years ago, Peterson’s ten year project, The Message, was completed. So I thought I’d engage with the recent authorized biography of Peterson — Winn Collier’s A Burning in My Bones — on this day. I love The Message. Although I may never…
READ MOREAt any point in time I have this little stack of books I want to read. Usually there is a certain (sequential) order in mind, but when I am in peak form with my reading, books tend to be assigned to different chairs in the house … and I read them all at the same…
READ MOREFifteen years ago, on one summery afternoon in the staff room at Carey Baptist College, Mike Crudge suggested to me that I should start writing a blog. And so it started … with a post entitled, Opening Our Own Document (15 February 2006). And 700 posts later, I guess that is exactly what I’ve continued…
READ MORESomeone, somewhere recommended this book to me. Whoever you are, wherever you are — thank-you! Not only did Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church push a few buttons for me, it polished them — four of them, in particular. 1. Patience One of the first impressions for me in returning to New Zealand…
READ MOREIt all started as I was reading Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. On page 92, he quotes Gerhard Lohfink making what seemed to me, on a first reading, to be a most extraordinary claim: “(Is 2:2-4; Micah 4.1-4) is the prophetic passage the early Christian writers cited more often than any…
READ MORE2021 is a big year. It is 100 years since Barby’s father was born and 10 years since my father died—but also 100 years since John Stott was born and 10 years since John Stott died. These three have been the most influential men in my life. Here I’d like to focus on John Stott…
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“What do you bring back with you from the global church?” This was a question asked of me six months ago. I’ve been thinking about the answers ever since. What follows is a personal and a general response. I am not trying to defend a thesis, nor am I trying to gather all the exceptions. This is simply how…
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.