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I need to keep things vague with this one, OK? This week I was filling in a reference of a kind for a friend. He is a committed follower of Jesus. I was asked to respond to the following question: “Has the applicant ever belonged to or been associated with any ethnic, religious, or political…
READ MOREI am pretty excited, eh?! During one week in March I am going to be able to engage with the two biggest influences on my life when it comes to the vocation to which God has called me. (a) Chris Wright is in New ZealandChris leads the global movement which stewards the legacy of John…
READ MOREI used to listen to my grandmother pray these prayers. In fact somehow I’ve managed to score her copy of this prayer book. John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer (London: Oxford University Press, 1936). First published in 1936, it had gone through 23 reprintings by 1960! It contains Morning and Evening prayers for each…
READ MOREDoes anyone else take exception to the way that whenever there are global statistics related to standard of living in our media, New Zealand seems to be always and only compared with the OECD? [The NZ Herald published a weekload of such articles/rankings earlier this month in a special series]. It might be about house…
READ MORERecently I was engrossed in an interview on BBC’s HARDTalk programme with the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales (04/01/08). Wikipedia is very different from Encyclopedia, isn’t it?How? Then a question dawned on me. When it comes to understanding and intepreting the Bible how is such a process like the way Wikipedia works and how is…
READ MORELast week Barby and I tacked on a visit to Kanchanaburi after speaking at a conference in Thailand. This is ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ territory and all those stories about the Japanese using 200,000 POWs in 50 different camps to build a 400km train track in just six months – before the Allies bombed…
READ MOREI enjoy reading. Here are my highlights from 2007 (in no particular order)… 1. William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: the fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857 (Bloomsbury, 2006) Having been based in Delhi from aged 10-17, I consider myself a Delhi-wallah (belonging-to-Delhi) and so does Dalrymple: Delhi is “a city that has haunted and obsessed…
READ MOREI have just come from my TV. A few weeks ago I discovered Christian programmes running on four different channels all at the same time. I lingered with each one for awhile. I moved on to the next one. But each time my response was the same – sad, to the point of grief. My…
READ MOREThis title caught my eye on the new book shelf at Borders. Check out the subtitle: “one man’s humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible” (William Heinemann, 2007). A.J. Jacobs – an agnostic, or non-believer – sets aside a year to follow the 700+ rules in the Bible as literally as is…
READ MOREYesterday I stumbled across the notes from John Sturt (a well-known counsellor here in NZ) about the difference between stress and burnout. Here they are… Burnout is characterised by disengagement;Stress is characterised by over-engagement. With burnout emotions tend to be blunted;with stress emotions tend to be over-active. Burnout leads to a loss of motivation and…
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.