mission
Hi, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where you are. But I do know that there are heaps of you out there and I find myself thinking about you a lot. So much so that I thought I’d write you a letter. First let me try to ensure that we are talking…
READ MOREI was seduced by the cover. As I walked through Heathrow the other day, its extremist image and glaring headline captured me. I bought. I read. “The War on Christians: the global persecution of Christians is the unreported catastrophe of our time” The article commences with three observations about the landscape of anti-Christian persecution today,…
READ MOREMy attitude towards alcohol has invited its share of light-hearted mocking over the years. It was the subject of an early post. This is still the post which has provoked the most comments. Some thought that once I joined a UK-based organisation (where attitudes tend to be more spacious), I might change my ways slowly…
READ MOREIt all started in the seventies. The 90s helped teach me how to worship. Worship is more than singing, but it is not less. In the seventies I learned to love to sing. A call to worship here: O come let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For…
READ MOREI was looking over the shoulder of my son as he completed a questionnaire the other day. It was for a study on New Zealand attitudes and values. It came from the department of a reputable university. A statement caught my eye. Admittedly, some of the statements have the spark of inflammatory about them –…
READ MOREI am a bit odd. I know it. I don’t complain about Auckland traffic (because compared with much of the world, it is pretty good). I’d welcome a day when an old song is prized above a new song, particularly on Sundays (because the lyrics so often voice a well-worn trail deep into the human…
READ MOREGood preaching engages both the Word and the world. It is about being faithful to a content, but also to a context. In our Langham training I like to develop this in an interactive way. Participants reflect on the big issues in personal/family life, local church life – and then life in their wider society. When…
READ MORESo clear is the memory of my first sighting of the phrase ‘chronological snobbery’ that it took me just 14 seconds to find it again – 25 years later. It comes up in JI Packer’s final chapter in the book edited by Carson & Woodbridge, Scripture and Truth. The phrase originates with CS Lewis and Packer describes…
READ MOREIt has been awhile since a movie has grabbed my theological imagination quite like Ruby Sparks. A sleepy midnight viewing on an airplane was quickly followed by a visit to United Video and a more engaged viewing on terra firma. One synopsis of the movie goes like this: “Calvin is a genius novelist who begins…
READ MOREI have been buzzing all summer over the discovery that the man (Sir James Stephen) who shaped the policy for New Zealand leading into the Treaty of Waitangi – on this very day, 173 years ago – was Wilberforce’s (step) nephew and was himself a child of the Clapham Sect. Then I discover (Keith Newman,…
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.