Featured Posts
Recent Posts
The irony was going to be sufficiently delicious for me. Earlier this morning I was on a flight from London to Dubai on an Arab airlines (Emirates). I decided to listen to Handel’s Messiah, that supreme piece of Christian music, on its entertainment system. But God had other ideas. He wanted me to have an…
READ MOREI am often asked about books on preaching. My response heads in two directions. The first response is with newcomers to preaching in mind. Where do you start and in what order should you read the books? Then the other response is directed at experienced preachers. Maybe they need to be refreshed, or challenged –…
READ MOREBe it cricket, football, golf, tennis, rugby union, or rugby league – no one seems to be too sure about how they started. This just adds to the fun and the intrigue that comes with trying to tell the story. My friend, Jonathan (Robinson) gave me a copy of Jonathan (Rice’s) Start of Play (Prion,…
READ MOREI had a bit of a chuckle as I reflected on this one. Theologically, I do Love the Ls – Lausanne and Langham. I guess it has something to do with their common denominator, one John Stott. While Langham preoccupies my life at this current time, I have kept missing out on Lausanne for some…
READ MOREI don’t often write about our children in this blog – but these photos are too cool to overlook… After thirty years in New Zealand, Barby and I have moved to India – leaving behind 5 children (we like to think it is 6 because we have a son-in-law as well) and 1 grandson. If…
READ MOREI was seduced by the cover. As I walked through Heathrow the other day, its extremist image and glaring headline captured me. I bought. I read. “The War on Christians: the global persecution of Christians is the unreported catastrophe of our time” The article commences with three observations about the landscape of anti-Christian persecution today,…
READ MOREWe’ve signed up for tata-sky here in India. A little cricket here, a movie over there – that kind of thing. So far with Hollywood movies there seems to be some censoring with scenes cut out. But I do not know enough questionable movies well enough to be able to tell quite yet. Certainly every…
READ MOREOver my first two early jet-lagged mornings in our new home in Bangalore, I devoured (choosing my words carefully) Stuart Lange’s A Rising Tide: Evangelical Christianity in New Zealand (1930-1965). When I told him I was going to miss the book launch by a few days, Stuart popped around to our house with a signed…
READ MORE29 November 1979 I’ve written about this date before. It is a huge date in my life. The morning after the Erebus disaster and I found myself at a shocked Auckland airport ready to fly to the USA. At 20 years of age I was heading to the USA both to attend Urbana ’79 (where I was…
READ MOREMy attitude towards alcohol has invited its share of light-hearted mocking over the years. It was the subject of an early post. This is still the post which has provoked the most comments. Some thought that once I joined a UK-based organisation (where attitudes tend to be more spacious), I might change my ways slowly…
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.