Blog

The 12th of July                     Word on the Week                          13th July 2019. Towering above the neighbouring houses stood the gigantic 12th of July bonfire.   Belfast has not seen a bigger one!    Built with thousands of wooden pallets and adorned with a necklace of rubber tyres it was formidable – an incendiary device the like of which […]

Lord’s Table                           Word on the Week                          6th July 2019. The regular task of preparing the bread for the Lord’s Table made me think about the wisdom of the ordinance being repeated regularly.  We forget so easily.  The first recorded incident of Sunday worship including, or possibly composed entirely of, the Lord’s Table took place […]

Using the Smartphone                    Word on the Week                  29th June 2019. It could be said that to use the Smart Phone you need to have smart people!   But then again it depends on how adventuresome you are in opening all those pretty icons.   I expect for many of us we are content to use […]

We are in the season of Pride Parades.   The LGBT turn out in their millions whether it be in New York, Sao Paulo or London their upbeat colours brightening up the street-scape.   Our Dublin effort grows larger by the year but you really know things are changing when in Belfast the Pride Parade is the […]

The Heart of the Matter                Word on the Week                     15th June 2019. The conversation in the Men’s Shed this week seemed to focus on the heart.   The various paraphernalia used to keep it going came under review.   These included stents, replacement valves and that long-time favourite, the pace-maker. The introduction of stents had, […]

The Great Skua                     Word on the Week                          8th June 2019. While on a bird-watching expedition last Wednesday to Loop Head in Co Clare a solitary Great Skua flew past heading for Blasket Island.    It was undisturbed by the presence of another big bird which had landed at Doonbeg some 6 miles away and with whom […]

Getting into the Swing                    Word on the Week              1st June 2019. I invariably find it difficult to select a topic for the weekly blog.   It’s not the shortage of material that is the problem but the volume!   So much happens in a week and, believe it or not, the Bible always has a view which […]

“What are you like”             Word on the Week                          25th May 2019 The phrase can have either an exclamation or a question mark.   An exclamation at something you have done or a question of where you come from.    The Bible says: – Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens anover the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creep on the earth.”    So God created man in his own image, the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis Chapter 1 verses 26/7). It […]

Thy Kingdom Come                         Word on the Week                   18th May 2019. It is the first time Jesus was asked by his followers to teach prayer so what he asked for should be of primary importance.    Like others they got it wrong.   They thought ‘kingdom equals territory’ – and much of our debate is slanted […]