Spirituality in Pastoral Care Practice

A service for the 3rd Sunday in the Trinity season - 21st June 2026 - led by Kt, Chris, Fr Tom, Emma, Jacqui, Brent and Bishop Martin



Click on this link to join:
https://youtu.be/P3IaP0Ea_UQ

Sometimes the most powerful sermon isn't preached from a stage. It's lived out on an ordinary day through an ordinary act of kindness. A listening ear. A helping hand. A warm meal. A word of encouragement. A moment of compassion for someone who feels forgotten. Jesus didn't simply tell people they were loved. He showed them. Again and again. ♥️

As followers of Christ, we're invited to do the same. The world doesn't need more perfect Christians. It needs more people willing to love, serve, forgive, and care for others the way Jesus did. You never know how far a small act of kindness might travel... or how deeply it may touch someone's heart. If you'd like a simple way to slow down and spend time with God each week, we'd love to invite you to join our free weekly devotional and experience our Guided Moments with God—peaceful reflections designed to help you reconnect with God's presence and grow in His love. Both are linked in our bio.

What if we’re teaching the wrong things?

I’d like to talk about 8-year-old Viktor here: he’s the son of friends of mine, he featured in one of my books, and he’s one of very few people I know whose dinosaur knowledge is better than mine. And he’s given me some thoughts about our education system.

Viktor’s cocktail of neurotypes is quite wide-ranging. He’s autistic, he’s dyslexic, he’s recently been diagnosed with dyscalculia, also has dysgraphia, and (by total coincidence) this week he had his ADHD assessment, passing with flying colours. He also struggles with sensory overwhelm and frequent meltdowns.

Big surprise, Viktor didn’t last long in mainstream education. He’s now home-educated with a tutor for his English and maths - both topics he struggles with enormously.

I love this lad like a godson. And it hurts that while he’s at home trying to access education as well as he can, our whole curriculum is set up to define him by his weaknesses. To portray him as some kind of academic car crash, while professionals blame his neurodivergence for his inability to meet standards he wasn’t born to play along with (and who are just licking their lips at the prospect of blaming his parents too).

When Viktor and I last went to the park, he was riding his bike. The park is quite hilly, and he was feeling adventurous.
I stood and watched this 8-year-old boy, with neurodivergent diagnoses coming out of his ears and enduring all the stigma of not being able to attend school, demonstrating *amazing* maturity.
He assessed the risk of each hill before riding down it. He took all the precautions and needed no reminding to wear his helmet. After each ride down the hill, he reflected on it. If he got things slightly wrong, he recognised it and learned from it.
The one time he crashed the bike into a pole, I watched as he handled himself better than most 8-year-olds I’ve ever met, talked through his tears about what caused it, had the resilience to steady himself mentally while he recovered physically, and then made a reasoned decision about when/whether he wanted to get on his bike again.

Which made me wonder… why aren’t we teaching personal qualities like that as part of the curriculum?
Why isn’t bravery part of the curriculum? Or patience? The ability to assess risk, or take risks? Curiosity? Why are so many things just left for kids to work out in their free time?

(When I was a teacher, one of my biggest objections was that I could take a child who was terrified of numbers and help them address their fears, or take a kid with no motivation and help them to love learning, but the “quality” of my teaching was based on how much they “progressed” through the curriculum rather than whether they were becoming more well-equipped to do so.)

The world has plenty of adults who leave university with a finance degree and struggle to load a dishwasher.
Or people who can navigate the curriculum really easily but have no curiosity in life.
Or people who can memorise everything for an exam but forget to wear a helmet.

Meanwhile, Viktor can’t spell “apatosaurus” but he can talk to you for hours about them. And he can’t do subtraction, but he knows how sharply to brake and when to do so.
He’s the kind of kid who will never get assessed by the kind of curriculum he deserves, and needs reinforcement from the people around him to help him realise just how amazing his qualities are.

And I hope that, twenty years from now, he’ll be glad that he developed the valuable personal qualities he did, despite being a kid who “struggled academically” because of curricular bias. It’s better that way round than being a kid who was favoured by the 2020s education system but never learned life skills that weren’t on a test paper.

Why not focus the curriculum on the development of human qualities rather than just raw knowledge? We’ll get better adults that way. Like Viktor will be one day.
Chris Bonnello - Autistic Author

Life can feel overwhelming when we try to carry everything ourselves. The future. The uncertainty. The unanswered questions. The things we wish we could change. The truth is, we were never meant to control everything. We were meant to trust the One who does. There is a deep peace that comes when we stop striving to hold the world together and remember that God is already holding us. 🙌

His love is not based on our performance. His presence is not dependent on our circumstances. And His faithfulness does not change when life feels uncertain. Today, take a deep breath. Release what you cannot control. And rest in the assurance that you are deeply loved by the One who is. If you'd like a simple way to slow down and spend time with God each week, we'd love to invite you to join our free weekly devotional and experience our Guided Moments with God—peaceful reflections designed to help you reconnect with God's presence in the middle of everyday life. Both are linked in our bio.

The temptation is to be overawed at the task and feel our human limitation more than offer prayers of gratitude to the Lord for what is possible despite all our concerns …

I will not leave you - Pray As You Go Today is Wednesday the 17th of June, in the 11th week of Ordinary Time. Enter into prayer now, becoming aware of God’s loving gaze upon you, as we hear Imbere Yanje by Judah Earle: ‘Answer me my God For it is to you that I pray I calle...

Sage advice !

Go also the second mile - Pray As You Go Today is Monday the 15th of June, in the 11th week of Ordinary Time. Come, my way, my truth, my life. As you listen to this piece by Margaret Rizza and enter this time of prayer today, begin by inviting the Lord into your life. You might l...

A sunday service for 14th June 2026 - the second sunday in the Trinity season - led by Kt, Sam, Martin, Ruth, Mia and Tim



Click on this link to join: https://youtu.be/mZlBXiXwgkA

Some seasons make us wonder if things will ever get better. The prayers seem unanswered. The struggle feels endless. The breakthrough feels delayed. But if life teaches us anything, it's that hard seasons do not last forever... and God has never stopped being faithful. His timing may not always match our expectations, but His timing is never careless. While we wait, He is working. While we wonder, He is present. While we struggle, He is strengthening our faith in ways we may not yet understand. 🙏

If you're walking through a difficult season today, don't give up. The chapter you're in is not the whole story. Keep trusting. Keep praying. Keep taking the next step. The same God who carried you through yesterday is already waiting in tomorrow. And if you're looking for encouragement as you learn to trust Him one day at a time, our *Be Still and Follow* devotional and free weekly devotional were created to help you slow down, hear God's voice, and find peace in His presence. You'll find both through the link in our bio. 💛

As parents, grandparents, teachers, and mentors, it's natural to hope our children succeed. We celebrate good grades, achievements, talents, and milestones. But some of the most important lessons in life can't be measured on a report card. Kindness. Compassion. Gratitude. Encouragement. The ability to see someone who feels forgotten and make them feel valued. These qualities shape the kind of person someone becomes long after childhood is over. 🙏

The world doesn't just need more successful people. It needs more people who love well, serve humbly, and reflect the heart of Christ in their everyday lives. May we teach the next generation not only how to succeed, but how to care, how to include, how to forgive, and how to recognize God's goodness in others. Because the greatest legacy we leave behind is not what we accomplish... it's how we love. And if you're looking for faith-filled encouragement for your own journey, we invite you to explore the resources we've created for this community. Through our free weekly devotional, worship playlists, Guided Moments With God, and devotionals, our prayer is that you'll find practical ways to draw closer to God and experience His peace each day. Everything is linked in our bio. ❤️