travel
I don’t know my icons – but I am willing to learn from my friends. So when Riad finished his devotion (on living with Habakkuk amidst the Syrian crisis) with an old Coptic/Egyptian icon, I leaned forward in my chair. A painting on wood. From Egypt in the 5th century. Jesus is standing alongside Abbot Menas, the…
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The first essay I ever wrote at theological college was on Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (now Izmir). Do you know the story? Born in 69 AD, Polycarp is understood to have been a disciple of the Apostle John himself. It was this same John who ordained him as Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp is famous for…
READ MORELooking at endless photos of other peoples’ rocks and ruins trends towards total boredom for me. They put me to sleep as quickly as the arrival of the evening hour following a nap-less afternoon. After meetings in Antalya (Turkey), Barby and I were blessed to be able to visit the Seven Churches of Revelation with…
READ MOREI love the local church but I do not often love the local church’s mission statement. Lots of reasons. Here are two. The mission statement seems to owe more to the corporate world, than the biblical world. It is part of the response to this chronic fear that the local church might be slipping out-of-date…
READ MOREI travel a lot in my work. On those occasions when there is time to be a tourist for a day here and there, usually when Barby is with me, an odd pattern has developed. I find that books like Lonely Planet are more meaningful after I have visited a place, rather than before the visit. I don’t…
READ MORESometimes a page is difficult to turn. Like this one. It lists most of the names of those who died in a massacre of 159 missionaries over a few weeks in the summer of 1900 in ‘Shansi’. The right hand side contains the names of those who died from the China Inland Mission, known today…
READ MOREIt is the story of the greatest military failure for any colonial power in the nineteenth century. … a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed it, or…
READ MORETrip Advisor rates it 22nd in their latest ‘best beaches in the world’ list, 3rd in Asia and ahead of anything in Australia and New Zealand (hmmm?!) – but we didn’t know that until after we arrived here for a few days away together. It is Agonda Beach in Goa – and it is spectacular. Here…
READ MORECharles Simeon was a big part of my life through my twenties. Like many before me, I was introduced to him in the writings of John Stott, a man who lived his life with a similar symmetry more than a century later. As a young pastor I read the biographies, capturing numerous illustrations on my…
READ MOREA day to remember in Yangon. A visit to the family homes of two great leaders of the twentieth century: General Aung San and Secretary-General U Thant. General Aung San is the father of the nation – and the father of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, whose party is soon to assume political power, as the…
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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.