travel
I live in NZ and listen to the sobered and scholarly voices on the challenge of the post-Christian West. I work in Asia and listen to the enthusiastic vibrancy of a post-Western Christianity. I live in NZ and listen to the church speaking “mission, mission, mission”. I work in Asia and listen to the church…
READ MOREWhile I’ve travelled over these recent weeks, I have heard some remarkable things… In Peru, the church is “living in a time of harvest” – the 1% ‘evangelical’ in 1989 has mushroomed to 15% today – which amounts to 4 million people and 20,000 churches. In Zimbabwe, the inflation rate is so bad that some…
READ MOREBarby and I are in transit in Hong Kong on the way home after a month away (for me) from New Zealand. Time was spent in Oxford, in Dale (SW Wales), and in Budapest. In Oxford I had the joy of helping coordinate a Consultation for teachers of homiletics from the majority world. This had…
READ MOREGod has been speaking to me recently about my capacity to think critically. It tends to gush a bit too much. It overflows into areas of life and relationships where it need not be – and really should not be. Come, Holy Spirit, and help me be more careful…and please be patient with me while…
READ MOREI am in South Asia at the moment. Lahore in Pakistan and now Colombo in Sri Lanka. While living in this region can have its frustrations, God gave the clues on how to survive when he placed certain animals here. Camel. Elephant. Buffalo. There is something about the slowish pace, the undistracted persistence, and the…
READ MORENow … where was I? Ah yes, we had invited Bill Bryson to New Zealand and I had said to him, “Here is the route, Bill – now you find and write the story”. The North Island has been covered and now we turn our attention to the supreme challenge: the South Island. Why such…
READ MOREIf I was Bill Bryson I’d come to New Zealand and write a book about my travels. As my own favourite past-time is planning itineraries around NZ, I am happy to say to Bill, “Here is the route, Bill – now you find and write the story”. I’d give him three parameters:(a) No more than…
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It is not every year that you can spend consecutive weeks in places as diverse as the Solomon Islands and Pakistan (with an exactly 50hr door-to-door trip in between!). But that is what Langham Preaching gave me the opportunity to do – and here are my favourite photos: Rembrandt in honiara Gender-specific open-air collaborative learning…
READ MOREI had some great laughs while in Pakistan: on the biblical basis for drinking chai (tea)…“Comfort my people, says your God” (Is 40:1)becomes“Come for tea my people, says your God” on how to make major rupees as a taxi-driver…on pastors remaining students…“Just look at a pastor’s bookshelf and discover when they died intellectually (- or…
READ MOREThe forecast was terrible. 80km winds and heavy rain. But we took the 4hr drive from Auckland anyway. State Highway 1 to Route 10. Then just past Kerikeri it is right onto Kapiro Rd and then left on to Purerua Rd and then finally another left onto Rangihoua Rd. A 25min walk down through 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.