Cartoline Da Torino

Love and fear... revisited

Some new thoughts on an old theme...

Not just for pastors

Some thoughts on my book of the year so far...

Calm in the storm

Reflecting on preparing a sermon...

Synthesis

On synth-pop and heart-change...

Change in the air

Rejoicing in the change of season...

Calling

A conversation with a sinking feeling...

Happy Birthday, Kitty

Kitty celebrated her first birthday on Wednesday.

No interruption

Some distractions are welcome, even on the busiest of days.

Reporting

Reflections approaching another Easter break...

The issue of the heart

I keep learning these little lessons in seeing what's there...

Rediscovering discovery... again

What do you do with those 'harder' books of the Bible?

Rediscovering discovery

Our 'retreat week' last week didn't quite go according to plan...

Daily miracles

Reflections on half-term week.

Transformation

When the snow finally arrives...

A Better God

You never know who you might get chatting to around here...

Almost Persuaded?

On Woolf, on Fry, but mostly on Bach...

New Year's Reading

Andy Stanley's 'Principle of the Path' is an excellent read as you look ahead to the rest of 2013.

Miracle in the Post Office

The strange gift of time...

Synthetic repentance

Why is that true repentance is so elusive?

Only 355 days until next Christmas

Celebrating Christmas in Torino...

Why the manger?

Some reflections for some of the "why's" of Christmas...

Hey Joe

Life can get messy sometimes...

Cowper in Italy

A little home comfort...

Ordinary?

When familiarity breeds contempt

A better hope

Reflections on a trip to the museum...

Standing in the rain

What makes a person stand out in the rain?

Context isn't everything

...but then again, it sure helps sometimes.

Quiet, isn't it?

When urban life redefines 'quiet'...

Shopping like humans

Sometimes, looking around you can be an interesting experience...

Changing perspectives

The return of the local street party...

The journey of the double-edged sword

Reflections on a home-group meeting...

Change of season

Autumn in Torino...

Some thoughts on Prayer

We can sometimes ignore some features of even the best-known passages of the Bible.

Summer reading

Something refreshing for the plane or the pool (and probably cheaper than a cup of tea on most airlines...)

Worlds apart

Life can be far more than just different perspectives.

Tastes of home

On food, culture and home...

Falstaff, Authenticity and Generation A-Z

Some thoughts on Elgar, Shakespeare and contemporary culture...

Changed lives

Just what exactly does it take to change a life?

Call and response

We were excited to hear that both the International Church of Torino and Highfields seemed to coincide with looking at the book of Titus.

The importance of journeys

Thoughts on the importance of not standing still.

The joyful opportunity to love

Seeing the heart of God in the love of His people.

Focusing the eyes

A little reflection on babies and studying the book of Ruth.

On routines, on 4am alarm calls, and other things...

Reflections of a brand new Dad

From whom all blessings flow

Reflections on an extraordinary week in the Williams family

A Welshman in Torino...

So how did a Welshman in Italy celebrate a Grand Slam last Saturday?

In an airport lounge...

I write this in an airport departure lounge, and I am surrounded by life in miniature.

Vox populi...?

Some thoughts on Twitter, technology and tolerance.

Of chickens, Italian and a couple of turkeys...

Learning a new language can be a strange business.

On 'Eugene Onegin'...

So what’s been playing on my CD player recently?

Always Winter?

More snow yesterday and now it seems the big freeze has come.

Concerning Hobbits

If you know me well, you’ll be aware that I’m a bit of a Tolkien nut. I’m not one of those Tolkien nuts who is learning to speak Elvish, but in relative terms, I’m a big fan.

In Halls of Splendour

It's been good to have my Dad and Mum staying with us this week. One of the many blessings of visitors is that you get to go to places that you had in mind to visit someday.

Morning Prayer Meeting

There’s a prayer meeting we have at our apartment on the first Saturday of every month. It would be fair to say that it isn’t the most well-attended of our meetings, but it’s a relatively new venture, so it’s early days.

The Shortest Day...

One of my usual Christmas rituals I shall miss the most this year will be Carols from King’s

What Christmas means to... Valerio

In our Christmas guest service last Sunday, I asked Valerio, one of the young men in our church, if he would share a quick two or three minutes with the congregation on the subject of "What Christmas means to me."

Sunday mornings

Sunday mornings can feel a little hectic. When you meet in a school every Sunday, there's always setting up to be done,

And the earth was without form...

We stare into a mass of grey, as thick and as impenetrable as the clouds which have been casting rain upon the city, in such unrelenting fashion, for the past five days.

People with white faces

There’s a guy who stands on the corner of Piazza Statuto and plays a saxophone.

Far from a monologue...

We wrapped up our sermon series in Philippians this last Sunday with the last verses of the epistle.

On Coffee....

In the move to Torino, there are some things that have taken some adjusting to. The coffee isn’t one of them.

Practising and Preaching

I've had one of those weeks. You know, one of those weeks where all things seem to conspire to tell you how bad you are at everything.

On words....

So I've been thinking a bit about words. Actually I've been thinking a lot about words.

...I wanted to live deliberately...

Almost overnight the temperature started to drop

City Life

“Look at that street! Can you believe we live in this city?” said Alison the other evening as we walked home. And she had a good point.

Pizza, planes and partnership...

I write this having just waved off most of the party of Highfields visitors who have been with us for the weekend.

Gustav Mahler and the Apostle...

One of the things I knew would miss most in our move was, of course, making music.

The Great Outdoors...

The other evening, we returned to our apartment after a busy day, to discover that our street had been transformed into the scene of a party!

Send/Receive

I click this button on my computer dozens of times every day. Just to confirm that no earth-shatteringly important emails have come in during the last five minutes.