spirituality
This morning it was off to offer a prayer of blessing for the house of some close friends that is taking shape. On the rural fringe of Bangalore. I loved it. As a boy, in both rural and urban settings in North India, I enjoyed being absorbed into scenes just like this one. The memories…
READ MOREIt is early Sunday morning, my preferred time to write a blog. For me this task is in every sense a sabbatical activity, recreative and restorative. This morning I am feeling overwhelmed by nostalgia. Later today I will be back preaching from Ecclesiastes… In many ways Ecclesiastes is where it all started. It is the…
READ MOREWithin weeks of starting my theological training, DA Carson was making sure we knew about Leon Morris. I was just 21 years of age. First impressions tend to linger. Two of the first books which I purchased as a student were The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross and The Gospel According to John. Leon Morris is arguably…
READ MORESixty-two. It was an impressive effort. Once I finished William Dalrymple’s White Mughals I turned to the Glossary and gave Barby the test. A bit of Hindustani here. A bit of Urdu and Persian over there. A lot of Koranic-Mosque terminology everywhere. But out of almost 140 words, she got 62 correct. Very impressive, don’t you…
READ MOREIn these troubled times, my mind and heart have travelled, yet again, to a hymn. It comes from my bulging ‘hymns I’ve sung only when I have chosen them’ file. The most recent selection of this hymn was almost 30 years ago – and even then I probably chose it only 2-3 times. ‘This post…
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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.…
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It jolted me. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Waking up in Egypt on the first day of our first training seminar in the region and my Bible reading greets me with these words, the very first words I read: Woe to those who go down to Egypt (Isaiah 31.1a). Already a bit burdened with apprehension,…
READ MOREThe Health & Safety folks in New Zealand would have a stroke on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Fences are few and far between. Books have been written to make those Health & Safety faces nod up and down knowingly: Over the Edge: Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in the Most Famous of…
READ MOREFor me, 53 days without flying in a plane is a break all of its own – but to be home again in New Zealand, with its beauty of scenery, friends and family has been a delight … even though somewhat exhausting. Best food Cafe Anatolia in Levin (Turkish). Greatest act of grace …
READ MOREWe wanted to do something different. We billed it as ‘a multi-sensory evening of interaction’. We called it Chat with Chaat, as we braided together the eating of street food from Delhi (chaat) and the interaction around cross-cultural conversations (chat) … with some games (one of which is described here). We’ve hosted five of these…
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.