I am a writer, teacher and minister with a special interest in mission, archives, and reforming Christianities. My wife Jenny and I live in Dunedin, New Zealand. We have family in Oxford, UK and in Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne. At different times we have lived in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Kuala Lumpur, West Auckland and Wellington.
I was born in Morrinsville in the Waikato and trained as an electrical engineer at the Auckland University School of Engineering at Ardmore in South Auckland. I worked in telecommunications before studying for the Presbyterian ministry in Dunedin from 1972 to 1974 and engineering is still an important part of who I am. I did doctoral studies at the University of Aberdeen on Thomas Chalmers and the Mission of the Church from 1975 to 1978 and was later in parish ministry in Kelburn and Brooklyn in Wellington.
I enjoyed teaching church history and biblical studies in Malaysia while on the overseas staff of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand from 1983 to 1990 and mission studies at the Bible College of New Zealand before coming in 1999 to the Presbyterian School of Ministry in Dunedin, now the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, where I was responsible for parish leadership training and teaching Presbyterian and Reformed Christianity.
Although I retired from the Knox Centre in April 2008, I still seek to encourage "a training event for every person in every role in every year" as a way of making training part of the culture of an "equipping" church. I believe "Presbyterianism can be fun!" and continue teaching Presbyterianism at the Knox Centre (until July) and also online through the University of Otago and the Ecumenical Institute of Distance Theological Studies. Since my mother Cathie Roxborogh died in November 2007, another project is the completion of the family history she had been working on. I am interested in open platform technologies for teaching and learning.
Since 1988 I have been involved with the International Association for Mission Studies and was until 2006 coordinator for the IAMS Project for Archives, Documentation and Oral History: Rescuing the Memory of our Peoples. I also served on the Board of World Vision New Zealand for a number of years.
I can be contacted by email on john @ roxborogh .com