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After nine months in my new role with Langham, it was great to gather the global team together for a week – at last. We stayed at Salutation Yard in Skelton, on the edge of the Lake District in the UK. Salutation Yard (I stayed behind the upstairs windows on the left) The primary purpose…
READ MOREMy first twenty-four hours in Yorkshire – ever. Who could have imagined that it would be twenty-four hours after the departure of one of the great French institutions – the Tour de France?! Signs for Le Grand Depart were everywhere in Leeds. Buntings and gold-coloured bikes adorned homes. Even the Black Prince, on horseback in the…
READ MOREI’ve been trying to free the Holy Spirit to loosen the control which the love of sports can have on my heart. Targeting the compulsive aspect. Enjoy it, without being addicted to it. Increasingly I feel the contradiction of following sports with such obscene salaries – and thereby feeling a little bit complicit – in…
READ MOREAs I travel and find myself in and out of peoples’ homes in different countries, I’ve noticed something… Generally speaking, Christian homes in ‘the West’ (for example, NZ, Australia, UK, and the USA) seem reluctant to adorn their walls with promises and texts from the Bible, or anything that is overtly Christian in its message.…
READ MOREEvery week I shall add my favourite World Cup headlines from one single newspaper here in India – The Times of India. Nobody does a headline better. Masters of their craft. To add a little Olympian flavour, I shall award a gold medal winner each week. WEEK ONE The gold medal winner in Week One…
READ MOREI have lived in the book of Amos for years. Sparked by having a grandson of the same name, it is the ripe time to encounter Amos’ contemporary – Micah. I have been reading and rereading this little book. No commentaries. Just reading it for myself. What have I been discovering? The verse everybody seems…
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I have just returned from my first ever visit to Latin America. The 43hr trip included a touchdown in La Paz (remaining on the plane). Within 10min of the plane door being open I could tell we were at 14,000 feet. Then as we took off, just before dawn, I could see Lake Titicaca (look…
READ MOREEarlier this month I returned to my ol’ stomping ground, Carey Baptist College. It was my first extended time in the community since I completed my time as Principal five years ago. With the last question in a post-lunch interview with Charles Hewlett (Principal), I was asked about theological education. What is critical? How can…
READ MOREI’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to write this post for some months. Take a look at the front page of yesterday’s newspaper. You may need to expand it a bit. These are epochal days in the history of India. News of Modi’s stunning landslide election victory deserves inches of headlines and multiple columns.…
READ MOREOne for novices. One for veterans. For veterans: Cornelius Plantinga, Reading for Preaching (Eerdmans, 2013). Preaching goes better when you do it in conversation with others – namely ‘storytellers, biographers, poets, and journalists’ (the subtitle). ‘The reading preacher will discover that great writers know the road to the human heart and, once at their destination,…
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.