Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

In this series we will be looking at 12 prayers found in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Some are prayers for personal circumstances, while others relate to family or church or nation. In studying all 12 prayers the emphasis will be on what we can learn about prayer and how we...

Never under-estimate a deacon. After all, the first-ever Christian martyr was a deacon in the church of Jerusalem – St Stephen.  And the first-ever Christian martyr in Spain was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa – St Vincent. By now it was 304AD, and the Roman Emperor Diocletian was persecuting Christians.  When his edict...

Sixty years ago, on 4th January 1965, T S Eliot, American-born British poet, playwright, literary critic and editor, died.  He won the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature. Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in St Louis, Missouri, but his family were prominent Unitarians, with roots in Boston. However, he had a Roman Catholic nanny,...

We all have moments in life when our circumstances change dramatically, and we wonder how things are going to work out. Perhaps it was like this for Mary. One moment she was planning her marriage to Joseph, when an angel announced she was to give birth to God’s Son. A few months later she had...

Have you noticed that people tend to be either givers or takers? John the Almsgiver was a giver – on a grand scale. Born into a wealthy family in Cyprus about 560 AD John was married with children when disaster struck: both his wife and children all died. In his grief, John decided to go...

January is a month of the beginning of great things! As well as the naming of the Son of God, we celebrate the conversion of the greatest ever apostle of the Christian faith.  Many books have been written on Paul, and here is the briefest of introductions. He was a Jew, born as ‘Saul’ at...

Are too many of us becoming clumsy or careless? Whatever the reason, accident-related deaths have soared by 42 per cent in the last decade. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) warns that we are “substantially more likely” to suffer a serious accident than we were 20 years ago. Data from England, Scotland,...

With the rush of Christmas almost over, we tumble into the New Year, sleep for a couple of days, take down the decorations and plod back to work, school or our normal routines.  There’s a pleasure about getting back to normality, but there’s also the challenge of looking forward to what the year will bring....

It is now 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea. Not many people know that. Anyway – so what? Because the Council of Nicaea, in 325, was the very first ecumenical council that the Christian Church ever held. A serious heresy had crept into the Eastern Church: Arianism, which taught that Jesus Christ was...

Four hundred years ago, on 13th January 1625, Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder died of cholera in Antwerp. He was 57. Taught to paint by his grandmother, he was known for his still life paintings, particularly of flowers, but also landscapes. He frequently collaborated with other painters, including his friend Peter Paul Rubens. Brueghel...

Following the recent vote in the House of Commons to give the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill a second reading, the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, the Church of England’s lead bishop for health and social care, said: “I have been deeply moved watching proceedings unfold in the House of Commons today. My...

Stop the Spiral Devotional When Faith Gets Shaken Waking the Women – Faith, Menopause, and the Meaning of Midlife Making Your Church Sustainable – a Practical Guide The Cheerful Giver – a short guide to gospel-driven giving 100 Ways to Get Your Church Noticed – 3rd edition But Is It Real? – Answering 10 Common...