media
When my friend Pieter showed me this video of the maiden speech in the British parliament of the 20 year old Scot, Mhairi Black, my mind and imagination hatched a little plan. A bit like coming to a biblical text for the first time, with a view to preaching it. I set myself to look…
READ MOREAbout this time yesterday there was a tear in the eye. Barby and I were returning home after a 40 hour visit to Vizakhapatnam – or Vizag, for short. In expressing my gratitude to the couple who had welcomed us into their home, I became a bit misty. Here we were – so very different…
READ MOREAll I want for Christmas is my two front teeth … to sit in a pew stuffed with my kids, giving O Holy Night a real rip together. But it ain’t gonna happen this year. The divas line up to sing this song, don’t they? Go to youtube. They are all there. Mariah. Whitney. Celine.…
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 MOREI’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to write this post for some months. Take a look at the front page of yesterday’s newspaper. You may need to expand it a bit. These are epochal days in the history of India. News of Modi’s stunning landslide election victory deserves inches of headlines and multiple columns.…
READ MOREOne is shorter; the other is longer. One is carefully scripted; the other is more spontaneous. One is nervous (and wooden); the other is nervous (and teary). One is without distracting mannerism; the other has a distracting sniffle. One hints of a riches to rags plotline (not likely!); the other has a rags to riches…
READ MOREIf you are not aware of TED, you may well be living on another planet. ‘People around the globe have viewed TED presentations more than one billion times online…’ (246). [NB: TED is an acronym for Technology, Education, Design]. My visa tells me that I am a communications consultant and so I thought I better engage…
READ MOREWith that title you may be thinking this is one of my occasional posts on cricketing matters. It is not. Nor, quite obviously, is it dealing with matters pertaining to rugby. It is about preaching. I’ve always found it ironic that those who shout the loudest about their high view of preaching can be the…
READ MOREWe’ve signed up for tata-sky here in India. A little cricket here, a movie over there – that kind of thing. So far with Hollywood movies there seems to be some censoring with scenes cut out. But I do not know enough questionable movies well enough to be able to tell quite yet. Certainly every…
READ MOREWhat a disappointment! The best thing about the movie was the company I kept in watching it. Spotting Christ-figures in movies is one of my favourite past-times – and so, yes, I enjoyed all the Jesus allusions. But it was all a bit obvious and silly, wasn’t it? It took me back to The Matrix.…
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.