movies
I laughed. I would have laughed even more if the theatre had been filled with Singaporean-Chinese people, rather than Indians. That would have been great fun. Crazy Rich Asians is a comedy. We watched the sanitised version, with India’s censor adding bleeps/blobs and deleting scenes (probably – how am I to know, really?). Still, we…
READ MOREShe may live in LA. She may work with Hillsong Australia, but she is most definitely a Kiwi Brethren lass from the Hutt Valley. Her father was an All Black rugby player, for goodness sake. What better pedigree could there be?! I remember speaking at a conference where I was responsible for the adults in…
READ MOREThe critics tend to hate it, but then I’m not one to let Rotten Tomatoes tell me what to think. Those who lived through the events tend to be annoyed by it – but then don’t they see that the ‘based on actual events’ is modified even further by ‘this story imagines’ those events? All I can…
READ MOREAs a New Zealander, I will continue to remember ANZAC Day (25 April, tomorrow) each year – but as a Christian I have decided to remember the Armenian Genocide (24 April, today) as well. The latter started the night before the former in 1915. The former is about a slaughter of thousands of Aussies and…
READ MOREThe other day I sat behind an older man clutching his ear with his hand during the singing. I picked what was going on. The music was too loud, but he desperately wanted to remain among the worshipping people of God. He wasn’t making a fuss, and clutching his ear seemed to be his best…
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It is not quite ‘In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord’, but still, in the year that Rush Hour was released, I played with chairs. I was with some Baptist youth pastors on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand. After the training day was over, we headed for the movies. 1998.…
READ MOREDenzel (Washington) made me do it. The other night he pushed me over the edge. Here I sit, still recovering from the Fast & Furious family saying grace around the table at the end of a movie of excessive violence, destruction and abuse, and now … there sits Denzel. Struggling with alcoholism, there is this touching…
READ MOREOn my recent flight from San Francisco to Singapore I decided to create a conversation in my mind, by watching a movie and reading a book. The movie was Exodus: Gods and Kings. With Batman (Christian Bale) as Moses, it tells the story of the Hebrew slaves gaining freedom from the Pharoah of Egypt. Even on…
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 MOREThey say I look like Paul Walker. Well, that may be stretching it a bit. The ‘they’ is really only me. I think I look like Paul Walker – and I could be wrong. Probably the only thing that Paul Walker and Paul Windsor share in common are the initials of our names. He is kinda…
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.