spirituality
I grew up with an LP (that is a big black disc from which music used to emerge, for those of you who are confused) in the house. It was called Sacred Songs. Actually I was convinced that it said Scared Songs on the cover and it became a bit of a family joke. Sacred…
READ MOREYou gotta love the seasons of the year and the way God remains active in each one of them. The way he works in his creation is so like the way he works in his new creation.
READ MOREI love this time of the year. I am an early riser and enjoy going to my little study on the first floor. It used to be the walk-in closet off a bedroom. I love having Concert FM accompanying me in the background. Then as 6am approaches the classical music seamlessly and gradually fades away…
READ MOREMy Dad turns 80 on Easter Sunday. I reckon that is pretty cool. It has caused me to reflect on some of the things for which I am grateful about my Dad (and my Mum) who is now more frail as Parkinsons accompanies him through these later years. I’d like to pay tribute to him,…
READ MORECarey has been a building site since classes started in March. The floor above us has been gutted and refurbished. It all finishes tomorrow. I’ve been disrupted much less than others – partly because I’ve been too busy admiring the skills on display. Start with the project manager. Every day for months there is this…
READ MOREI’ve just entered a new chapter in my life. I have started teaching ‘spirituality’ in our BAppTheol curriculum at Carey Baptist College. It’s going to take me a few years to feel confident with the material – but, hey, you gotta start somewhere! On the first day we did an exercise where students put 30…
READ MOREThese bush fires in Australia have got me thinking about the weather… But I need to reveal my hand a bit at the start. My teenage years were based in New Delhi where I have sat inside – with the only activity being the beating of my heart – and watched the sweat drop off…
READ MOREIt is such an apt image: ‘fallen’ … stumbling, grazing, bruising, hurting, slipping. The ‘evangelical’ world in the USA has been shocked in this past week by the fall of one of its leaders(Ted Haggard). It is tragic – particularly for his wife and his children. The last time this happened with someone of such…
READ MORERecently I heard it yet again…A person in pain. A person stumbling through a ‘dark night of the soul’. Things are bleak. And this person is told that their faith is too frail. It is too fragile. ‘You need a stronger faith’. I am not convinced. That is cruel. It is unkind. It is bad…
READ MOREI’ve just completed an essay for my DMin in which I explored the spirituality that comes to us ‘off the screen’ – from what we sing in church. I took a pretty representative Baptist church in NZ and worked through its playlist of songs [and threw in the playlist from the Billy Graham Crusades (1959…
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.