Sharing Tough Stories There’s a lot of difficult stuff knocking around in the news these days. I know a lot of people who intentionally have tuned out. It seems like a daily avalanche of suffering and struggle and unpredictability. We hear of displaced people in the Middle East, of refugees trying to make dangerous journeys […]
Some Lessons from the Irish Bouldering Championships 2026 Last weekend, BoulderWorld, Belfast, hosted the Irish Bouldering Championships 2026 in partnership with Mountaineering Ireland. It was an amazing event and I took away some lessons which I felt would be of great value to the church. Some of these things are, perhaps, already in place in […]
Getting Caught Up in Beautiful Moments One of the things I love to do on Mondays when I’m off is collect the children from school. I quite often drop them in, but don’t often get the chance to collect them and to hear from them, or their teachers or classroom assistants, how the day has […]
Going for Growth Some years ago, Bishop Ken Clarke, the retired Bishop of Kilmore, wrote a cracking little book called “Going for Growth.” It looked at the idea of coming to faith, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus in our daily life, and then how to pass the faith on to family, friends […]
One Big Thank You Some months ago, we got a lovely phone call from Carol Anne, one of the committee of Fundays, an activity we attend with our daughter Lucy once a month. Fundays was established about 12 years ago now, to support children with complex needs, and their siblings. It’s an incredible event with […]
The Heart of the Matter There’s a silly game which features on the teatime show on the radio station I listen to called ‘Bunch of 5’s.’ I sometimes hear it as I’m driving home. The contestants are given one minute to answer 5 random bunches of 5’s. It might be something like 5 things you […]
7 Great Words to Bring to a Conversation Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone! I spent the morning doing what I have done for maybe the past 20 years or so, and took myself off to the little church where it is believed St. Patrick planted his first church in Ireland in 432 AD. The […]
Going the Extra Mile I found myself at a dance competition for a few hours last week. To be honest, it’s not the place anyone who knows me would immediately associate with me. In fact, on one memorable occasion, at a fundraising ceili in a previous church, the caller came down from her chair to […]
Showing Up and Sticking At It I guess in many households where there are children, parents do their best to try to help with the schoolwork. They try to support and encourage their children to do their homework, take an interest in their subject choices and do the little they can to help in practical […]
The Importance of Telling Others There’s a beautiful account in the Gospel of Mark where a man who has been possessed by demons, or experiencing some sort of challenging mental illness, is healed and made well by Jesus. Most of his life has been tormented by his illness. People have been fearful of his presence, […]