preaching
When things get tough I try to look in two directions. One is horizontal. Maybe chronological is a better word. I bring to mind the way God works with a 24 hour day and how dawn follows midnight. Always. Without Fail. Then in many countries, far from the equator, He works with a 4 season…
READ MOREThe word is used so much today. I hesitate to bear witness to depression in my own life, lest by doing so it mocks those whose struggle with it is so serious, so debilitating. Down through the years … the names, the faces, the situations. They fill my heart and mind as I sit down…
READ MORETo be known as a good listener is a great aspiration to have. It is certainly one of mine. But inevitably, in my work (as with many of you, I’m sure), I do a lot of talking. Looking back through my google calendar over recent weeks, I find things like this: teaching a module on…
READ MORE‘The Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other’. Attributed to Karl Barth, this is the classic cliche about the need for preachers to remain connected to both the Word and the World, the Text and the Context, as they prepare and deliver sermons. Earlier this month in Amman, I heard Dr Yohanna…
READ MOREWith the SAIACS MTh class in 2013 Requiring MTh students to take a course in homiletics/preaching? It is most unusual. But that is what happens here at SAIACS (Bangalore). Twenty five students. Their theses go in on the Friday (yesterday). Then this module starts on the Monday. A bit of a challenge for the instructor…
READ MOREYes – another book on preaching, pitched primarily for people making a start. (I’ve tried to surf this recent wave for readers – here, here, here, and here!). Jonathan Lamb’s Preaching Matters (IVP, 2014) has arrived. I read the book in one sitting – or, one lying, to be accurate – early one jet-lagged morning in…
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 MOREOffering critique is always tricky. While it is possible that a preacher can develop without being critiqued, it is not possible for a trainer of preachers to do so. They must learn to give and receive critique. In Langham our goal is to develop trainers and so it is critical that we think about critique.…
READ MORESomeone somewhere has flipped the switch. After spending more than two decades moaning about the lack of basic books on how to preach, such books have been rushing off the press in the last few months (see here and here and here). In the last couple of weeks, I have read three more and it is…
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I have just returned from my first ever visit to Latin America. The 43hr trip included a touchdown in La Paz (remaining on the plane). Within 10min of the plane door being open I could tell we were at 14,000 feet. Then as we took off, just before dawn, I could see Lake Titicaca (look…
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.