Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at God

Last month we considered the overall ‘look’ of a church building and how that often reflects the way faith is celebrated inside. One of the clearest visual symbols inside a church building relates to where the font, used for baptism, is placed. We often think of Baptism as being uniquely Christian, but this is not...

Numbers 12:13, ‘O God, heal her, I pray.’  These six words are Moses’ prayer for his sister Miriam.  They tell us a lot about Moses and a lot about prayer. For some time Miriam and her brother Aaron had been simmering with anger against Moses. They protested that he had married a Cushite woman (v.1),...

The nine fruits of the Spirit are Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. We don’t strive for the fruits of the Spirit, rather we plant ourselves in good soil, allow ourselves to be fed by the Holy Spirit, keep taking in nourishment, turn to face the light of Christ and these...

As Lent 2025 gets underway, do you suspect that your Christian commitment is not all it could be? If so, you are not alone. As one American church leader sadly put it: “In America the church is 3,000 miles wide – and one inch deep.” But Jesus is still calling us to be His disciples,...

Love in Action! From the Vicar What’s the Big Idea? An Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament: Job Reflecting Faith: Church Buildings Prayers of the Bible:  Praying in your Discouragements  What you have in common with a woodcarving How do you keep your life going in the right direction? ** Editor:  Canon Paul...

‘Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.’ (1 John 3:18). The writer Gary Chapman describes how love can be expressed in 5 different ‘languages’: words of encouragement, quality time, gifts, acts of service and touch. Do you have a preferred language of love? As we think...

‘Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.’ (1 John 3:18). The writer Gary Chapman describes how love can be expressed in 5 different ‘languages’: words of encouragement, quality time, gifts, acts of service and touch. Do you have a preferred language of love? As we think...

‘Why does God allow suffering?’ This is a frequently asked question of Christians, because we believe in a God who is both good and powerful and it is explored in the book of Job. This book is part of the wisdom literature, along with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Job was both wealthy and...

We have been thinking about different aspects of church buildings. But what about ‘the whole thing’? – the impression you have when you first see a church building? Most of us have visited many church buildings, either to worship or as a tourist:  to enjoy the splendour, the colours, the style and the architecture, with or...

‘Moses said to the Lord, “…I am not able to carry all this people alone, the burden is too heavy for me…”’ Numbers 11:10-15.  Moses prayed this prayer in a day of dark depression and discouragement.  The opening verses of the chapter relate how divine punishment fell on the people of Israel because they complained...

Woodcarving isn’t as straightforward as it seems. You don’t begin with a block of wood; you begin with a piece of paper. The first step is to draw a plan of what you want to carve, and only when you’ve got that right do you start to shape your piece of wood. The carver then...

‘Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be …successful.’  Joshua 1.8  Any flying instructor will tell you that periodically all aeroplanes need to be ‘trimmed’ or ‘balanced in flight’. After flying through storms...