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Across 51 days, Barby and I have set ourselves the goal of holding 34 Open Homes. With one eye on these covidian times, the idea is to share about our work in smaller, conversational settings. We want to thank and update those who have been standing with us over these 12 years, while welcoming others…
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We arrived a little late to the party, but it was worth the wait. The Blessing Aotearoa New Zealand is exquisite as an expression of worship. Beautiful though it is as worship, I was even more stirred by its possibilities for mission. Not only was I stunned to see it on the news at the…
READ MOREIt is good to be home again in New Zealand. I enjoy being able to pop across to my mother’s home on Sunday evenings and watch the BBC’s Songs of Praise with her. But not today, as we are in covidian lockdown – again! With Songs of Praise I am not so keen on the choirs, the organs and…
READ MOREWhat delicious timing! I finished another book on the social history of cricket in South Asia on the same day that one of its most luminous cricketers retired from international cricket. MS Dhoni. On 2nd April 2011 (at the exact same time the institution where we were based in Bangalore – SAIACS – was having…
READ MOREWith the training of preachers as my vocation, and in seeking a more personal way in which to engage with Black Lives Matter, I decided to turn to the African-American preaching tradition in order to listen and learn – again. Martin Luther King Jr, Henry Mitchell and Robert C. Smith Jr have all featured in my…
READ MOREI love being ‘Gwennie’s boy’. In fact, as a product of Western culture, I am a bit unusual. I love discovering who I am by reflecting on whose I am. None of this autonomous individualism for me. Be it Gwennie’s boy, or Barby’s husband, or Diane’s brother, or Micah’s grandpa, or Bethany’s father, or Michael’s…
READ MOREThe recent decade has seen a steady stream of books on preaching aimed at the beginner. Not only did this alter a worrying trend, it also provided me with plenty of inspiration for my primary calling – namely, the training of preachers in indigenous, grassroots settings in the majority world. But in this season of…
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Earlier this month, in the space of 24 hours, two video clips arrived in my in-box. One is nine minutes in length. The other is six minutes. Both were recorded a long time ago and are rather limited, technically. Both feature men who were born in the same decade and then who died in the…
READ MOREI have a friend called Fred. Over these next four weeks, Fred is hosting his own Art Exhibition, in Nelson (New Zealand), around the theme, Memories, A Nelson Childhood. I feel this exuberant delight for him. He’s going home to Nelson, with his family, to exhibit his art for the public. It is wonderful. Under…
READ MORE20/20 has always been associated with a clarity of vision, one that enables a certainty of purpose and a strength of step. But when 2020 finally arrived among us, it has brought confusion, uncertainty – and sickness. The irony is that those of us who have trumpeted our ‘wisdom, wealth and power’ down the decades,…
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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.