Tim spent his early years in Papua New Guinea, where his father was a pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship. Thanks to music and his Christian faith he survived the move to Australia at the age of 12, where an old trumpet started him on the road to earning his living as a professional musician. A conversation on a cruise ship led to a change of direction, studying theology in the US before becoming a Baptist pastor, director of an international mission agency and now principal of Melbourne School of Theology.