spirituality
Exactly one week ago the parade was making its way through Christchurch, with thousands turning out to celebrate the All Blacks’ victory in the Rugby World Cup. I’ve been thinking a lot about emotion in the intervening days. What an array of feelings surfaced during the tournament. From the opening ceremony when that lad came…
READ MOREI don’t tend to buy books according to topic – but by author. And then each year I try to expand my list of favourite authors. 2011 has been the year of Craig Bartholomew. Earlier this year I reviewed his remarkable commentary on Ecclesiastes. On a recent trip to Cambodia I read Living at the…
READ MOREThere is plenty of wisdom in Ecclesiastes, nowhere more than in ch7.2: “you’ll learn more at a funeral than at a party” (paraphrase mine). I’ve been going to a few funerals recently and learning lots as I do so. Last week it was Dr John Allen, remembered from my teenage days at Mt Albert Baptist…
READ MOREThis past weekend has been in the diary for months as a family holiday. This book, John Stott: a portrait by his friends, has been targeted as my weekend reading matter for almost as long. The fact that John Stott died just the day before we left added a poignancy to the time in its…
READ MORE[NB: My custom with this blog is to avoid using it as a place to re-preach my sermons and re-speak my talks. I figure once is enough for everyone, including me! But every now and then I make an exception, particularly as this blog has evolved into a personal filing system and I don’t want…
READ MOREDenver and Dayton will never again be the same for me. Yesterday – on the two hour flight from one to the other – I read (with Barby doing the same, over my shoulder!) through Charles & Joanne Hewlett’s Hurting Hope: what parents feel when their children suffer.. Here and there we shed a tear.…
READ MOREI’ve just brought up one week (to the hour) in a new (for me) unnamed country in Asia. Most of that time has been spent in the company of the unnamed J&R, D, and R – mission workers with a combined total of 120 years working in this country. A staggering figure! It reminds me…
READ MOREI join the multitude of people across the time zones who will this day be thanking God for John Stott on this his 90th birthday. I cannot be as intimate or as profound as many but his impact on my life nonetheless has been enormous. The Apostle Paul once said “follow me, as I follow…
READ MOREIt is eighty years today since the Napier earthquake – so that means my mum must be turning eighty today too. And that she is… I’ve always loved being introduced by reference to my relationships. Joseph’s Dad. Diane’s brother. Barby’s husband. Someone’s teacher. Rachel’s boss. Martin’s friend. Someone’s principal. You get the idea. Well –…
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.