Student Life | Page 2 | Student Christian Movement

A Couple of Methodists, an Anglican, a Unitarian and Some Board Games…

12 Mar 2020

“You walk into a room and are greeted by a couple of Methodists, an Anglican, a Unitarian and some board games…”.

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - but this was actually the first time I ever went to an SCM Leeds gathering just after moving to the University of Leeds!...

'They Just Get It'

18 Feb 2020

When asked to reflect on what I value in the Student Christian Movement, my first thought was that ‘they just get it’.

In an anxious church where I’m often asked ‘how many‘, 'how much’, working with allies who are brave enough to step out of this rhetoric is empowering and liberating. SCM...

If Not For That: A Freshers' Reflection

1 Oct 2019

I wish I could do Freshers differently. I would have made more of an effort to find out who my flatmates were beforehand, so I wasn’t ‘the unknown quantity’ in the flat (my words not theirs - they were all very friendly). I wish I’d been a bit bolder about going out and meeting people. I wouldn’...

Chaplaincy as Presence

21 May 2019

‘I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith… That is what I call this-worldliness: living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes, and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing,...

The Hospitality of Chaplaincy

15 May 2019

One of the first things I noticed about university chaplaincy at the beginning of my first year was that the Sunday morning services started half an hour later than the Sunday morning services at my hometown church. This realisation amused me: that the chaplaincy took the stereotypical laziness...

Mental Illness vs Mental Wellbeing: What's the Difference?

15 May 2019

Contrary to popular belief, Caitlin is not a medical professional, and the first aid training she received does not equate to medical advice. If you are struggling with mental illness or your mental wellbeing, please seek help from your GP or a certified counsellor.

Last week I...

Be Excessively Gentle With Yourself

25 Apr 2019

A couple of months ago I led my local SCM group in an evening about stress. We closed the workshop by listening to A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted from John O’Donohue’s Benedictus. In this blog I’m using some of those same words to think about stress and faith.

When the...

Hit Pause

17 Apr 2019

It's easy to believe that stress is a normal part of life. In some ways it is, but all too often in our modern world our stress far exceeds what can be considered healthy. In a backdrop of a mental health epidemic, what can be done to avoid the trap of stressful living?

There have...

A Community United: Thoughts from Wondering & Wandering

28 Mar 2019

Two weeks ago I gathered together with a group of fellow Christian students from across the country for the Student Christian Movement National Gathering, titled 'Wondering and Wandering'. The event saw students from across the UK from Glasgow to Southampton come to Hebron Hall near Cardiff take...

Refreshing Commitments: Studying

10 Jan 2019

I don’t know how you feel about getting back into studying after the holidays, but for me, at times, it can be hard. The first few days of attempting to get back into any form of routine are difficult, and it seems to take an age to get anywhere with anything vaguely related to work. Here are...