De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

An article by Owen Gibson and Patrick Barkham - Saturday January 29, 2005 The Guardian It was easy to believe the devil had the best music when Britain's only Christian pop star churned out such songs as Mistletoe and Wine. But unlike Sir Cliff, a new generation of Christian artists taking over the charts is blessed with youth, beauty and critical acclaim. Just don't ask them to talk about their faith. On Monday Athlete release their second album, Tourist. Tipped for No 1, the London band hailed as the new Coldplay are veterans of Christian music festivals across the land. Their success follows hot on the heels of Natasha Bedingfield and her brother Daniel. The artists are linked by the evangelical church group Ichthus, which organises youth services, events and missions in a string of churches across south London and Kent. Athlete - singer Joel Potts, bassist Carey Willetts, keyboardist Tim Wanstall and drummer Steve Roberts - have built up a devoted fa...

The cry "Yee ha!!" comes from an arrangement used by the SFX Worship Band of "Happy Song" by top-selling British Christian band Delirious?, a song that we use in our school Masses. Pupils in our school seem to have latched onto this cry and a number come up to me and request "Happy Song" for their next Mass. I know it's a gimmick, but at least they are getting some enjoyment out of going to Mass - hopefully also from some of our other music and from the excellent homilies of the priests we are fortunate to have come and serve our school community. These are pupils who have been baptised Catholic, but for whom school Masses are in many cases their only eucharistic celebrations of the year apart from Christmas, baptisms, etc... British band Delirious? Photo from http://d-life.bravepages.com. Over the last few years, together with fellow musicians, I have been developing the use of modern Christian rock/pop music in masses in school (full rock band) an...

It's now 18 months since I started my new dual role at SFX College after having been a teacher there on and off since 1992. Being a Chaplain whilst still teaching part-time and being a form tutor presents its own challenges, I have discovered. In particular the tension between still wanting to maintain authority in lessons and at registration, and being someone whom the pupils (and staff!) find accessible, non-judgemental, welcoming and friendly. Whilst feeling reasonably happy that my relationships with the pupils, especially those that come to Chaplaincy are good, I sometimes wish that I could turn a blind eye to some of the misdemeanours I see going on around school and not report pupils who break the rules. To do so, however, would be to ignore my duty as a teacher in helping maintain an atmosphere in school that is conducisve to learning and personal growth and would also be to break the bonds of solidarity that unite me with my teaching colleagues. I have to be both good cop ...

Let's boldly go... where a few million have already gone before! Why have a blog? Vanity? Loneliness? Overblown self-importance? All of those, maybe. But I'm hoping that having and using this blog will have a beneficial effect on the rather poor up-keeping of my website , being able to use it as a source of content for the site. I used to keep a diary for a few years as a boy and enjoyed it and I wish I'd kept the little diaries I used. If anyone has the misfortune to stumble upon this site my intention is to talk about my school Chaplaincy work and teaching, about modern Christian music, maybe share some favourite quotes, talk about films, spirituality... in other words, I'm not too sure! :-) We'll see...