Welcome
This is Rough Around The Halo, a site about following Jesus in the middle of real life: not the polished, picture-perfect version, but the everyday reality of joy and struggle, hope and disappointment, grace and perseverance. Here you’ll find honest, biblical, and practical reflections on discipleship, church life, identity, culture, and the challenge of walking faithfully with Christ when life gets hard — sometimes thoughtful, sometimes humorous, sometimes challenging, but always aimed at helping people keep going when faith & life collide.
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So… Where Did Everyone Else Come From?
If Adam and Eve were the first people, where did everyone else come from?
Well, let me be completely upfront and say, I don’t know for sure. All I can do is look at what scripture says and make educated guesses about what it doesn’t say.
But this is one of those questions you can somehow miss for years. Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. Cain gets sent away. Then Cain gets married.
Hang on. Married to who?
Did Genesis miss a chapter called Meanwhile, In The Next Village?
It’s a fair question. And the answer is both simpler and more complicated than people sometimes make it.
Feel Far From God? Ask Yourself These 10 Questions
There are times when being a Christian feels amazing, and then there are the other times. You pray, and it feels like you're talking to the ceiling. You sit through worship on Sunday morning, but your heart isn't really in it. You open your Bible, read the same verse four times, and realise you've taken in absolutely nothing. You might as well have been reading the terms and conditions on your car insurance.
You still believe. You still love Jesus. But God feels distant. Perhaps you've even found yourself asking, "God, where are you?"
Well, before we go any further, let's establish something important. God's love for you isn't measured by how close you feel to Him.
If I Prophesy, Does That Make Me a Prophet?
I can run. Not particularly quickly, and nobody from Team GB needs to start worrying, but I can technically put one foot in front of the other fast enough for it to count as running. That doesn’t make me a runner.
I can also cook. I can make a banging omelette, a passable roast dinner and several meals involving chicken that taste suspiciously similar despite supposedly being completely different recipes. I’m definitely not a chef.
So here’s my question. If I prophesy, does that make me a prophet?
“Christianity isn’t a religion. It’s a relationship.” What Does That Actually Mean?
Christians love saying this. It sounds great. But there’s a fairly obvious question we don’t always answer.
What does having a relationship with God actually mean?
I have a relationship with my wife. We talk. We spend time together. She answers when I ask her a question. I can see her face and usually tell what she’s thinking.
God is different.
I can’t see him. I can’t tell you I’ve ever heard an audible voice. I can pray, “God, what should I do?” and there isn’t usually an immediate response booming through the ceiling.
Yet Christians constantly talk about “walking with God,” “hearing God,” “knowing God” and “having a personal relationship with Jesus.”
So what are we actually yapping about?
The Rough Around The Halo 12 Week Bible Reading Plan - Available Now
Want to get into the Bible but don't know where to start? Our FREE 12-Week Rough Around the Halo Bible Reading Plan keeps things short, punchy and practical.
Each week tackles a different topic, with manageable Bible readings, a suggested article, two reflection questions and a simple action to help you put what you've read into practice.
Use it on your own, with a friend or in a small group. No theological degree required. Just a Bible, a bit of time and a willingness to dig deeper!
12 weeks. Real questions. Practical faith.
Available now as a FREE download on our Downloads page
Saved Through Childbearing? What If I Don’t Have Kids?
Making sense of 1 Timothy 2:15, and discovering that God's family is bigger than we sometimes realise.
Recently, I preached on 1 Timothy 2, and there was one particular part of the passage that I didn't really get the opportunity to address properly. Partly because there's only so much you can squeeze into a thirty-minute sermon, and partly because this particular verse deserves considerably more attention than I was able to give it.
The more I've thought about it, the more I've felt compelled to come back to it. Because this isn't just an interesting theological question or another one of those awkward Bible passages that leaves us scratching our heads. It's something that touches on a deeply personal, and for some women incredibly painful, area of life. And I don't want anyone to read this passage and come away believing that they're somehow less valued by God because they haven't become a mother.
Why Is Reading the Bible So Hard and Boring?
Sometimes reading the Bible is amazing. It’s life-giving. Something clicks, and I’m reminded why this book matters.
But honestly? A lot of the time, it’s a graft.
Sometimes I have to read the same passage five times because the first four literally sent me to sleep. I do love a sleep, but ideally not during an act of worship. Napping is a family trait. In my family, we don’t take naps. Naps take us.
As a church leader, there’s a pressure to have an amazing spiritual life. Bible reading should apparently be like a spa day every time. I should emerge refreshed, radiant and overflowing with insight. Meanwhile, I’m trying to work out where I got to before my eyes closed.
The Church Down the Road Isn’t Your Competition!
I love my church, and I think you should love yours too. Love the people. Turn up. Serve. Give. Pray. Invest in relationships. Stick around when things aren’t perfect. Don’t treat church like YouTube Shorts, endlessly scrolling through congregations looking for better worship, shorter sermons and coffee that doesn’t taste like it was filtered through an old sock.
Being committed to a local church is a good thing. But there’s a subtle difference between “I love my church” and “my church is better than your church.” Sometimes we cross that line without noticing.
We compare preaching, worship, theology, kids’ work and outreach. We become strangely interested in how many people go to the church down the road. We reassure ourselves that while they might be growing, our theology is definitely better. Before long, the church down the road starts feeling suspiciously like the competition.
And that’s a problem.
Alright, I caved!
Rough Around The Halo has gone social!
I don’t really do social media myself. It’s far too easy for me to disappear down a rabbit hole and emerge two hours later wondering what on earth I’ve just been looking at, why my eyes are sore, and why I’ve allowed my need for a wee to reach genuinely critical levels.
But if you’re a slightly more balanced person than me and you are on social media, you can now follow Rough Around The Halo on:
Instagram: @rough_around_the_halo
Facebook: /rougharoundthehalo
Sit Down, Be Humble: God Doesn’t Owe You Anything
There are few things more dangerous than a Christian who has started to believe God is lucky to have them.
It rarely sounds quite that ridiculous. Nobody looks into the mirror and says, “Honestly, Lord, this was a cracking bit of recruitment.” It sounds more respectable. People are depending on me. Nobody else will do it properly. After everything I’ve sacrificed, surely I deserve this. Pride learns to speak fluent Christian remarkably quickly.
This isn’t just a warning for church leaders with book deals and suspiciously white teeth. Pride doesn’t need a platform. It is perfectly happy in an office, a kitchen or the family WhatsApp chat, where it can disguise itself as a strongly worded message about who left the lights on. It appears whenever ordinary believers think our service or good behaviour has made God indebted to us.
But Is It Actually a Sin?
There is a question Christians ask that sounds perfectly reasonable but can sometimes reveal that we are asking completely the wrong thing: “But is it actually a sin?”
To be fair, it is not a stupid question. Sin matters. Scripture matters. We absolutely should care about what God has and has not commanded. The problem comes when that question becomes our entire approach to Christian living. Can I watch this? Can I drink that? Can I go there? Can I spend this much? Can I do this thing if there is not a verse somewhere that specifically says I cannot?
Before long, following Jesus starts to look less like discipleship and more like trying to find the loopholes in a mobile phone contract.
New Download Page With Free Resources
The Rough Around the Halo resources page is now live, with a small but growing collection of completely free downloads designed to be practical, useful and easy to actually use.
Here’s what’s available so far:
Why Do Christians Talk Like Weirdos? 10 Confusing Things Christians Say
Christians say some weird stuff. I know because I’m one of them.
I’ve been around church long enough that I can comfortably talk about being “in a season”, “feeling led”, needing some “quiet time”, having something “put on my heart”, and asking God for a “hedge of protection” without giving any of it a second thought.
But imagine walking into church for the first time. You don’t know where to sit. You don’t know when to stand up. Someone has already hugged you despite you quite clearly going for a handshake. Then the person next to you starts praying for God to surround you with a hedge.
A what? Are we praying or landscaping?
It’s a Battle, But It’s a Better Battle
People can sometimes talk as though becoming a Christian magically changes life’s difficulty setting from Nightmare to Easy. As if, when you give your life to Jesus, the birds start singing and every parking space you need becomes available. The trouble is, Jesus never promised Easy mode.
Life before Jesus is hard. Life with Jesus is hard too. Following Christ does not remove every temptation or painful Thursday afternoon. In some ways, it reveals battles you did not know needed fighting. I was talking about this recently with a guy from church when a sentence came out of his mouth that I have not been able to shake:
“It’s a battle, but it’s a better battle.”
Exciting Update: Rough Around the Halo Is Now on Your Home Screen
I’ve got some exciting news.
Rough Around the Halo can now live on your phone or tablet like an app.
No App Store. No Google Play. No downloading 247MB of something just so you can read the latest article.
You can now save rougharoundthehalo.com directly to the Home Screen of your iPhone, iPad or Android device. You’ll get the Rough Around the Halo icon alongside your other apps, and one tap takes you straight to the site.
It means the latest articles, devotionals and whatever else I decide to inflict on the internet are never more than a tap away.
Church Hurt: When The Body Of Christ Leaves Bruises
Church should be one of the safest places in the world.
It should be where wounded people find healing, lonely people find family and those carrying heavy burdens find people willing to help, and at its best, it totally is. Sadly, sometimes the place that should help us heal becomes the place where we are hurt.
Church hurt cuts deeply because the people who wound us are often the same people we trusted to protect us. We prayed together, worshipped together and may have shared parts of our lives that almost nobody else knew about.
If someone is rude to you in Tesco, you can avoid that checkout for a while. When someone hurts you while claiming to represent Jesus, it can leave you wondering whether Jesus is safe.
Stop Being So Serious: The Christian Case For Having Fun
Christians are exceptionally good at being serious.
We know how to serve, sacrifice, persevere, pray, fast, give, carry burdens and keep going when things get difficult. Ask a Christian how their week has been and there’s a decent chance the answer will be, “Busy.” We say it with a strange mixture of exhaustion and accomplishment, as though busyness somehow validates the previous seven days. I’m absolutely shattered, therefore I have used my time wisely.
But ask someone what they’ve done purely because they enjoyed it and suddenly we can become a bit awkward. I know I can
When Church & Mental Health Seem Incompatible
There are Sundays when church feels like home. Then there are Sundays when getting through the door feels like a spiritual version of Total Wipeout. The foyer is loud, an enthusiastic welcomer is approaching with both arms open, and somebody on stage says the 6 most terrifying words in modern Christianity: “Turn to the person beside you.”
When your mind is already fighting you, church can feel like one more place where you are failing. I have lived through depression and panic attacks. I know it is possible to love Jesus, believe deeply in the church and still find your mind refusing to cooperate. Sometimes belief is not the thing you have lost. You have lost the capacity to participate in all the ways church normally expects.
So what do we do when mental illness and church stop feeling compatible?
Does God Make Empty Threats?: When God says judgement is coming… and then it doesn’t
A little while ago I wrote an article called Does God Change His Mind? Yes, No, Maybe? I finished it reasonably happy with where I’d landed. Then my brain did what my brain tends to do and found another problem.
If God knows everything, if He doesn’t change His mind in the way that we do, and if His character is the same yesterday, today and forever, what are we supposed to do with those moments in Scripture where God announces judgement… and then doesn’t do it? Because He knew He wasn’t going to do it. And if God knew He wasn’t going to do the thing He said He was going to do, surely what He said was… a lie?
Obviously, I’m not foolish enough to suggest God is a liar. Apart from being a fairly catastrophic theological hill to die on, Jesus describes Himself as the way, the
Why Does God Care What I Do With My Money?
Nothing makes a room full of Christians suddenly fascinated by their own shoelaces quite like somebody saying, “Let’s talk about money.” We’ll happily discuss beasts in Revelation and whether drums are biblical, but mention bank accounts and everyone braces for an offering thermometer and urgent references to the church roof.
It’s often said that, after the kingdom of God, money and possessions were Jesus’s most talked-about subject. The exact ranking depends on how we categorise his parables, but the point stands: Jesus returned to money because it competes for our trust.
Money moves far beyond currency. Most of us exchange forty hours or more every week—chunks of our limited lives—for it. We once received scraps of metal and paper; now we get a number on a screen which shrinks after Tesco and a strange noise from the boiler.