spirituality
Seldom do I remember flights taking-off these days. I am asleep by that time, as an involuntary nap overwhelms me on the way to the runway. On this occasion I could be excused for such behaviour befitting a baby. Eight long days of listening, facilitating and note-taking had left me a little weary. I boarded…
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 MORETe Manihera and Kereopa. It is Keith Newman (in Bible and Treaty) who introduced me to these two Christian Māori men, martyred near Tokaanu (situated ‘at 6 o’clock’, on the southern edge of Lake Taupo) in 1847. When our family took a holiday earlier this month in nearby Kuratau (‘at 7 o’clock’ on the lake), I became…
READ MOREIt was like driving into spring. In Toronto the trees were leafless, but as I made my way by train to Windsor (Ontario) – and then by car to Ohio and on to Kentucky – the trees and countryside came alive with a fresh and velvety green. It was beautiful. That was last month. Last…
READ MORE[I avoid using this blog to post sermons, messages and the like. Blogs feel like a different genre and I prefer to chat away. But on this occasion I’d like to pay tribute to my special friend, Marty Roy, who died earlier this month after a battle with cancer. The family asked me to share…
READ MOREBarby and I have enjoyed five weeks with Micah and Amaliya, our little grandchildren, filling our Bangalorean lives with joy. The fact that our Lovely Lys and her hubbie, Tim, came with the package deal only makes the visit that much sweeter. Tonight I say good-bye to all of them as I head to London…
READ MOREI know CS Lewis is ‘the man’. One day when I have nothing to do, I am going to go through Mere Christianity and list all the times he finds the spiritually significant in the utterly ordinary and everyday. That is the simple secret of compelling illustration and nobody does it better. But there is one…
READ MORELast year my daughter Bethany asked me if she could cross-stitch some words that were precious to me. It took a few seconds to make up my mind. And so it came to pass, over Christmas, that some wise words arrived from the east (well, more the south, I guess), simply framed and starkly beautiful.…
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 MOREIt has been hard living so far from New Zealand during the two hundredth year celebrations of the arrival of the gospel – on Christmas Day, 1814. I’ve been following all the facebook chatter closely. I’ve loved that space at Oihi Bay for a number of years, even taking a horde of friends on a…
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.