Living the Gospel Where Life Happens
Founded through the ministry of Bad Boy Turned Good.
About the Urban Friar
-
Meeting people where they are.
For over fifteen years, Ross has walked the streets, housing estates, cafés, prisons, and forgotten places where many people feel unseen. His ministry begins with presence—listening before speaking, serving before preaching, and building genuine relationships over time.
Whether sharing a meal, praying with someone, helping connect them with practical support, or simply sitting beside them in difficult moments, the aim is always the same: to reveal the love of Christ through ordinary acts of compassion. Food opens the door, friendship builds trust, and the Gospel offers lasting hope.
-
Bringing Christ to the places others overlook.
Bad Boy Turned Good, Cook Serve Pray, and Iron & Incense exist to bring the hope of Jesus into everyday life. We believe the Gospel is lived as well as proclaimed—through prayer, practical service, honest conversation, and faithful presence.
Our mission is to help people encounter Christ, restore dignity, strengthen communities, and inspire others to become the hands and feet of Jesus wherever they are.
-
What began as a personal call to follow Jesus into the streets has grown into a mission rooted in presence, service and genuine relationship. The Urban Friar goes where people are—not with polished programmes or easy answers, but with time to listen, hands ready to serve and hope grounded in Christ.
What makes this work different is not simply what we do, but why we do it. Every conversation, shared meal and act of practical help begins with the conviction that every person matters and no community should be forgotten.
Ross B turns faith into practical action.
Where Faith Meets the Streets
Known through Bad Boy Turned Good, Ross brings the Gospel beyond church walls and into the streets, estates, cafés, and communities where people are often overlooked.
Through Cook Serve Pray, community outreach, storytelling, prayer, shared meals, and practical support, Ross walks alongside people facing loneliness, addiction, poverty, grief, isolation, and difficult life circumstances, from the streets of West Waterford to the edge of the jungles in Cambodia and the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.
The aim is simple: meet people where they are, restore dignity, build genuine relationships, and help them take their next step towards hope, community, and the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
Where Faith Meets the Streets
A Note from Ross B
This has always been about people.
I believe the Gospel must leave the building and take flesh in the streets. It should help people feel seen, valued, supported, and less alone.
Prayer with hands. Mercy with boots on. That is the heart behind the work: meet people where they are, listen to their stories, treat them with dignity, and respond with practical compassion when help is needed most.
That same heart has carried beyond West Waterford, into Cambodia, Kenya, and Myanmar, supporting local ministries already doing the hard work on the ground, and caring for orphans who need someone in their corner. But the deeper aim is never to stay needed. It's to raise up leaders who belong to that soil, who know their own people better than we ever will, and who will carry the mission long after we've gone home. Real mercy hands over the torch. It doesn't hold onto it.
Through shared meals, prayer, friendship, and faithful presence, the aim is simple — to make the love of Jesus visible wherever hope runs thin, whether that's a street corner in Dungarvan or a village in Kenya.
Where the Story Began
Before the meals, before Cook Serve Pray, before any of it had a name that stuck, there was Bad Boy Turned Good. Just started, just getting its legs under it, working with lads and women battling addiction, self harm, and the kind of pain that doesn't show up on a form.
This is where RTÉ's Secret Millionaire found it
Let's Talk.
Whether you need someone to listen, want to support the mission, invite Ross to speak, or explore working together, you're welcome to get in touch.
Need Someone to Talk To?
If life feels heavy and you need someone to listen or pray with you, reach out. You don't have to have everything together before you make contact.
Partner With the Mission
Urban Friar exists through the generosity of people who believe the gospel belongs on the streets as well as in the church. If you'd like to volunteer, collaborate, or support the work, we'd love to hear from you.
Invite Ross
Looking for someone to speak at your church, school, men's event, outreach, conference, or community gathering? Get in touch to discuss how we can serve your community.