worship
As I posted earlier in the year, a project for me in 2012 has been figuring out how to preach from the Book of Revelation. I’ve had the privilege of training people in Indonesia, Pakistan, China (in my work with Langham overseas) – and also people in Dunedin, Mt Roskill and New Plymouth (back home…
READ MOREIt is a big day today. It is one year since my father died. Sometimes I wish I could rewind those final days, play them again, and slow them down. It is all such a blur. I had no idea that everything would happen so quickly. On a Friday we realised the end was coming. He…
READ MOREI am a timid chap. Always have been. Always will be. If I was to look at the sum of all my fears, dogs and flying figure regularly in the top ten. Not without good reason, I might add. As a little newspaper-delivery boy I had an awful experience of being bitten – and I’ve…
READ MOREI’ve struggled to be happy this Christmas. It was the Friday before Christmas that did it to me. In the morning I try to absorb the news that an enduring and close friend has a brain tumour. Cancer is sinister, evil. At midday I attend a funeral for the father of my brother-in-law. A simple,…
READ MOREThis is Part Two of my case for re-introducing some hymns into the playlist of the contemporary church. Outside of a well-worn 3 or 4 (Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, Great is Thy Faithfulness…) – we do not sing hymns any more. Part One – a prayer-full playlist – is here. I trawled the…
READ MOREA recent post revisited this vexed area of what we sing as part of our worship of God. I tried to make a case for re-introducing some hymns into the playlist of the contemporary church. Outside of a well-worn 3 or 4 (Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, Great is Thy Faithfulness…) – we do…
READ MOREWhile I am one step removed from Kiwi pastors in my new job, I still enter into many a conversation with them. Unfortunately a common thread in these conversations still continues on from year to year. It is the sad state of ‘worship’ – as expressed, primarily, in our Sunday services in those minutes not…
READ MORESaying that there are Anglicans in Langham Partnership is like saying there are All Black fans in New Zealand (oops, maybe that analogy is breaking down – I hear things aren’t going so well on the rugby front back home … although Southland keeps winning – surely that is all that really matters, isn’t it?).…
READ MOREI 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 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.