Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at your Church

Pakistan’s Supreme Court recently overturned a death penalty on the Christian farm labourer who has become the country’s highest profile prisoner.  Asia Bibi has spent six years on death row facing blasphemy charges – a charge she has always denied. Within hours of the verdict, protests had broken out in in Islamabad and other cities,...

Connect Cafe, an innovative project launched in 2017 by JEO Ministry, creates space for relationships, outreach and discipleship in Bethlehem. JEO, an organisation that seeks to reach out to all people in the Holy Land with the message of Jesus, is led by Church Mission Society local partner Rami Fellemon. JEO runs ministries that aim...

Could a glossy magazine help you start a conversation about Jesus and the reason for the Christmas season? Christmas HOPE is a 32-page give-away magazine to help churches connect with their local community in the festive season. Topical features and eye-catching photos draw readers into an easy-to-read publication packed with testimonies and stories that point...

Attendance at Christmas services in England’s cathedrals has broken records for the second year running, according to recent statistics. A total of 135,000 people came to Church of England cathedrals to worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2017 – an increase of three per cent on the previous year, and the highest total...

We all know the scene – children dressed up as shepherds, wise men and angels smiling round a baby Jesus in a hay-filled manger. But how much do we know about the real story of Christmas? What was Bethlehem really like? Who were the three Kings? Who was Mary? Now a new, short guide takes you...

It is as undesirable to see all women ‘at the front’ of church leading worship as it was once to see all men ‘at the front’ leading worship. So says the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester, and the first female bishop to sit in the House of Lords. Speaking at this year’s Cheltenham...

Recent research by the London School of Economics has found the debt charity, Christians Against Poverty (CAP) contributes £32 million to the UK economy. It seems that for every pound the Christian debt charity spent, it benefitted the wider society four times as much. The LSE also said CAP provides ‘crucial’ face-to-face support and goes...

Do you mostly read the Bible in snatches off an app, or retweeted from friends?  Are the verses always encouraging, making you feel better? That is well and good, but there is more to the Bible than just ‘feel-good’ verses, and to grow as a Christian you need the ‘complete diet’. Now Dr Pete Phillips...

Sixty young evangelists are to be recruited by HOPE Revolution following the success of Mission Academy Live. The young evangelists, aged 11 to 18, will be nominated by youth workers and will receive an intensive year of mentoring and training with small group work and residentials. The training courses focus on peer-to-peer evangelism in small...

Attackers recently ransacked, looted and burned a church in the Kossey district of Niger’s capital Niamey, leaving the building a charred shell, its floor covered with debris and broken and blackened musical instruments. Niger’s tiny Christian minority make up less than 1% of the population, but it had traditionally lived peacefully and unthreatened alongside the...

Connecting churches and communities Together we’re restoring prisoners’ lives Modernise the church – or close down More of us are praying online Why Cathedrals are fun Days of parish priests as ‘kings’ are over, says new Dean Central Asia clamps down on Christians   ** Editor:  This autumn HOPE is helping thousands of local churches...

Remembrance Sunday and Christmas are key seasons when churches can play a vital role in bringing communities together. Churches can be wet-weather venues for Remembrance services. Often we can provide refreshments, PA systems, singers and DBS-checked children’s workers for Christmas events. And most significant of all, churches can help the whole community to focus on...