I am, honest – here’s a picture of me with a collar and everything!  (gosh, haven’t seen that in a while…)

Good news for Dock-world today: I’ve been appointed as the part-time minister of St Clement’s church in Templemore Avenue, just a stone’s throw away from the Titanic Quarter (you can even see the cranes from the door of the church!)  The appointment was announced in St Clements on Sunday (reports of people weeping and running for the exits are greatly exaggerated) and will come into effect in May.

Why is this good news for Dock-world, I hear you cry?  Am I deserting the Titanic Quarter?  Not a bit of it… part of my role from the very beginning of The Dock has been to find a viable long-term part-time post which would be a solid foundation and support for the more experimental, ‘out-there’ work in the TQ.  If you’ve been around The Dock for a while you’ll remember that for the first year of its existence I did something similar, filling in as temporary minister in Carrowdore and Millisle parish during their vacancy; last year, my tour-guiding with Titanic Walking Tours was a different (and fabulously stretching and challenging) way to make ends meet while The Dock project made its way forward.

The great news about St Clements is that it has come along at exactly the right time: The Dock is entering a whole new era.  Over the next few weeks I’m hoping to be able to break news which has been long-in-the-making, has involved loads of behind-the-scenes work by many fantastic people, and which will take the whole project to another level.  Once that all happens, there’s no turning back: The Dock Is Out There.  It’s no longer a guy wandering the TQ asking people if they’ll share a coffee and a brainstorm for the future of church in the TQ.  We’ll be living out the dreams and visions that emerged during those coffee-fuelled (and, we pray, Spirit-inspired!) early days.

My work with St Clements will be a great, reliable foundation-stone under it all.  And it’ll be great fun too – I’ve visited the place a few times as guest preacher, and they’re lovely! – and being right there in East Belfast there are all sorts of shipyard connections, families with tales to tell.  I can’t wait to bring all the St Clementians (hmm, might have to think of a new name) to see all that’s happening in the TQ – and to find new ways for the TQ gang to make the return trip as well.

Exciting times!

Sick of the sight of me yet?  I’m not invading your TVs today but your newspapers – the Dock Chaplains feature in (at the last count) the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News and the Daily Mirror:

(Very Important Note: the “drink drive shame’ headline is nothing whatsoever to do with our condition on the bikes…)

The Dock Chaplains haven’t suddenly started a new fitness regime: we were on two wheels to help Christian Aid launch their Titanic Cycle Challenge – a ride from the Titanic Quarter to Cobh in May this year.  (Neatly connecting up the last place the Titanic stood on dry ground, and the last place she called in to port).  If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge check out the Christian Aid website for all the details

Because yes, shame-faced to admit, Karen and I got to muck around on bikes for the press launch but aren’t actually cycling the route – though we will be making a good breakfast for the cyclists as they set off…!

Confession time: yesterday I took ages to pick out my shirt-and-pullover combo for the day – in fact in the end Susan had to be consulted for a casting vote.  Yes, vanity, vanity, all is vanity – the reason for this unusual attention to sartorial detail was that I knew I’d be making my way down to Dublin to appear on the telly…

So it was my first time (that I’m telling you about, anyway) to wear make-up (that’s me in the dressing room in the pic on the left).  Once I was suitably bronzed and un-shiny, I was led out to be interviewed by Martin and Sybil (Dublin’s Richard and Judy?) on the big red sofa of The Morning Show on TV3.  Banishing from my mind all thoughts of similar scenes in the sitcom Rev (when the minister accidentally ‘outs’ his assistant on live TV) or The One Show (where Jeremy Clarkson made himself the most hated person in the nation a few weeks ago), I tried to give good Titanic (that was why they’d asked me, after all) – and also squeeze in a mention of The Dock as well…

You can catch it on TV3’s version of iPlayer at 29mins into the programme here.  Let me know what you think of Susan’s choice of shirt!

More good news in the Belfast Tele tonight… click on the pic to the left to see another full-page article talking up the prospects of Titanic Belfast.

Fodor’s (fancy-pants travel guides) have named Belfast and the Titanic centenary as “the world’s biggest tourism story” in 2012.  Yep, the world’s.  Right on our doorstep.  Who isn’t finding their pulse quickening at this kind of expectation?

In related news, isn’t it great to see so many positive articles in the ol’ Belfast Tele recently?  Not too long ago, your humble correspondent was continually naming-and-shaming them for a lot of down-in-the-mouth, never-gonna-happen default negative journalism whenever the TQ was mentioned.  Fantastic to see a change of heart – and it’s a great sign of the change that’s happening all over the province, negative to positive.  Where once we looked down, now we look up.  This is the new Belfast.

Which is the great Good News of our faith.  People can change.  Attitudes can change.  Nations can change.  That’s the kind of message we’re ready to broadcast during the year of the world’s biggest tourism story.   C’mon!

I don’t usually post links to cute pet videos on Youtube – but just in case anyone else is having a Monday Morning kind of a day, here’s three minutes that will make you see that all is well with the world: