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It is no great surprise that TIME magazine’s Person of the Year is Barack Obama. The cynic in me recognises that about once every four years the President of the USA is predestined to win the award. I don’t read TIME anymore, but picked up a copy on the plane and found the article by…
READ MOREOver Christmas I spent time getting to know Aung San Suu Kyi. I started with Justin Wintle’s book, Perfect Hostage, picked up at the bookshop in the departure area of Phnom Penh airport. Given the recent developments in the story, it is a bit dated (2007). However I found it valuable to begin my pilgrimage with…
READ MOREThings are looking bleak for the NZ cricket team. It feels like the darkest of midnights, with a long time until dawn. Dismissed for 45 and losing by an innings and 27 runs? Sounds pretty bad. But people are over-reacting in their criticism of the team. Here are five reasons for the darkness and why it could…
READ MOREIt is not every day that the eye falls upon a book on leadership where the case studies, so charming in their sycophancy, include the likes of Mao Tse-Tung, Tito, Ceausescu, Chou En-Lai, Hodja (Albania), and Khrushchev. But such was the case when I wandered through one of my favourite bookshops – in the departure…
READ MOREParents tend to search for significance in the naming of their children. Barby and I are no different. A few things have happened this Christmas to bring this to mind, particularly with our three boys a long, long way away. Starting with the youngest, Joseph Daniel. Joseph and Daniel are the two prominent male characters…
READ MOREAnd so when I come across a you-tube video clip to use in this blog, what do I do? I click on share and then I select embed. The identity of the video clip comes up as a series of letters and numbers. I cut and paste this into my post. I click save, releasing the…
READ MOREBeryl was older than both my parents. I’d known her for more than 40 years – as ‘Auntie Beryl’ in my days as a missionary-kid (MK). Auntie Beryl lingered with us and took an interest in our little MK lives. We loved her. Auntie Beryl died earlier this month. Some years ago she had asked…
READ MOREIt has been a long time coming. The final frontier. Through these 29 years in New Zealand, it is the only part of the country in which we have never holidayed. The East Cape. Not any more. Barby and I – together with our daughter Bethany – have just returned from a week travelling around the…
READ MOREI used to teach a course on movies which I called Windows and Mirrors. The idea being that movies can open up the critical area of worldview by providing a window on the world – and often an uncomfortable mirror for ourselves as well. One of my favourite exercises was to play with the same…
READ MOREIt is months since I posted photos from my work with Langham in Asia. In November it was so cool to have my son-in-law, Timothy (training to be a pastor), accompany me to Camb*dia and Ind*nesia. It was kinda like the old firm of Paul and Timothy being reunited for a journey into Asia once again.…
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.