Featured Posts
Recent Posts
The Health & Safety folks in New Zealand would have a stroke on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Fences are few and far between. Books have been written to make those Health & Safety faces nod up and down knowingly: Over the Edge: Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in the Most Famous of…
READ MOREIt is ‘literally like food for me … like someone put batteries in my heart.’ This is how a young Bosnian woman, Mirjana, reflects on the impact on her of the biblical preaching to which she was listening. How do you train preachers to have that kind of impact? Food and batteries? Yes, please! Increasingly,…
READ MOREI am trying to do it more often. On those occasions when Barby is able to travel with me, we are stealing a few days and going off together to enjoy the sights a bit. Earlier this week, after arriving in Phoenix, we headed up to Flagstaff (‘up’ is the operative word – 7230 feet…
READ MOREFor me, 53 days without flying in a plane is a break all of its own – but to be home again in New Zealand, with its beauty of scenery, friends and family has been a delight … even though somewhat exhausting. Best food Cafe Anatolia in Levin (Turkish). Greatest act of grace …
READ MOREWe wanted to do something different. We billed it as ‘a multi-sensory evening of interaction’. We called it Chat with Chaat, as we braided together the eating of street food from Delhi (chaat) and the interaction around cross-cultural conversations (chat) … with some games (one of which is described here). We’ve hosted five of these…
READ MORERelay races often make for high drama. Have a watch of this one from 2015. Listen carefully to the commentary alongside as well. Did you catch it? That calamitous changeover. It can be precarious. The relay is such a striking picture of leadership. And it has some biblical precedent too. There is an individual-relay which…
READ MOREOne of the things to love about the Olympics is that it lifts the awareness of the peoples of the world. But a bit like the rainy season, or springtime, the season of the Olympics passes and we all return to the national corners from whence we came. What then? How do we keep alive…
READ MOREIt is eight years since Barby and I shifted our focus from New Zealand to the peoples of the majority world. Back then, in NZ, voices reminded us of the need to be resourcing mission with inspiring stories of relevance. Now, returning to NZ for two months (August-September), I find that our experiences have drawn…
READ MOREBeing relevant is over-rated. Settle down. I’m not saying it is unimportant, just that it is over-rated. To pursue it with such fervour and make it so important for so long, as has been the case in my home country of New Zealand, has been a mistake. For all sorts of reasons. As I have written…
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.