Learning from the Masters It’s always a joy to watch people who are really good at what they do. I spent a few hours recently in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast watching some of the best snooker players in the world battling it out to become the Northern Ireland Open Champion. It’s amazing to get […]
Shining a Light on World Mental Health Day Last Thursday was World Mental Health Day. It’s a day that could have slipped our attention. There were some items on the radio I heard as I was driving in the car. Many people are much more open these days in discussing our mental health, but there’s […]
Something Went Wrong! This week’s blog is coming your way somewhat later than expected. I had hoped to write it when I normally do but, when I switched on my computer to do so, the following message came up. Apart from telling me something went wrong, it gave an error code and, the bottom line […]
Praying for Overwhelming Events Sometimes the scale of the world’s needs can seem rather overwhelming. We hear of catastrophic storms, wars, floods, droughts and famines. We read terrible human stories of accidents and criminal activity. We hear of racially motivated attacks, and these stories make us wonder how to respond as a Christian, or if […]
Dear Friends, As we move into the month of October, our thoughts start to turn to Harvest Thanksgiving. It’s a month where we notice the evenings drawing in earlier.It feels darker as we are getting up in the mornings and the clocks go back. Over the past few years we have partnered with our friends […]
Making Big Announcements One of the aspects of Church life that can be quite challenging is how to make big or important announcements. Very often, at the start of a service, we rattle through the events of the week, or we let people know about forthcoming events. The same announcements may also appear on a […]
Extending the Hand of Friendship A great hero of mine died earlier this year back in March. His name was Charlie Bird, and he spent his working life as a journalist with RTE, the Irish broadcasting network. He became their chief news correspondent and his was the face and voice that accompanied major global and […]
The Big Sing According to research done by the Singing Foundation website there is now considerable evidence to support the claim that singing really is good for you. It has physical benefits like improving your posture, lung function and regulating your blood pressure. There are other social and psychological benefits, too, like relieving stress, improving […]
The Beauty of Warm Hospitality Last weekend our son Conor was invited to a birthday party. It was his friend’s Dad’s 50th and they had invited him to come and stay overnight to share in the celebrations. When I arrived to drop him off, there were quite a few cars down the road where they […]