Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

For where two or three gather in My name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20) You can get most things whenever you want these days. We had three services recently in one day at our local church. Not much to brag about I suppose, but for us in small rural village it was encouraging....

 A church-run bereavement course is having a “profound and wide-reaching impact on adults of all ages,” according to a recent independent evaluation. The Bereavement Journey, run by the Christian charity AtaLoss, is “addressing a national need for bereavement support”, and is “ideal for the significant majority — 85-90 per cent — of bereaved people who...

Jude the apostle and martyr (1st century) warns us in his epistle that not all ‘evil’ comes in the form of obvious ghosties and ghoulies.  He writes instead to warn the Christians of the greater danger of people who infect others with heresy and moral failure.  He writes that they are nothing more than …. ...

Fruit of the Spirit Prayer for October 2025 Agape Love Praise to the Holiest in the height Autumn Glades The Gates of the Kingdom The Leaves A Helping Hand ** Fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22,23, Ps 34:8)< Opportunities To ripen your fruit in our lives, Lord, give us opportunities. To grow in Your Spirit,...

Gardens are preparing to go to sleep, but next Spring will soon be here.  So why not consider some changes now: ~ Install a water butt now, to store up the winter rain for the Spring. ~ Reduce the hard standing in your garden. Instead, let rain soak into the soil, rather than go down...

1 Thessalonians 3:12, 13, runs: ‘May the Lord …establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.’ Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian church, dating from about 51 AD, is generally regarded as the first book in the New Testament to have been written. That means that this prayer is the first New Testament prayer to have been...

 Religious Studies (RS) GCSE in England and Wales fell by 2.6 per cent this year, but it still remains a popular subject.  And the Religious Education Council (REC) of England and Wales is calling for more specialist teachers. The REC said in a recent statement that RS was “the seventh most widely taken subject in...

When did you first spot Halloween-themed items in the shops this year? Some were on sale in August. Seriously. August. But perhaps no wonder – as in the UK Halloween has become the third-largest retail event after Christmas and Easter. In 2019 we spent £474million. By last year it had grown to £776million. Who spends...

This year marks ten years since England introduced the 5p charge for single-use plastic carrier bags. The charge has had a dramatic effect – with a reduction of 98% in sales. In 2014, 7.6 billion single-use plastic bags were sold in the UK. By 2023, 133 million single-use bags had been sold in the major...

** Lost in translation Sign on a door in Istanbul: American dentist – 2nd floor. Teeth extracted by a new Methodist. ** Reply A curt reply to a bishop who had suggested that a certain incumbent consider moving read: Dear bishop, I REMAIN, yours faithfully…. ** Not any more Two young tourists went into a...

In October we traditionally give thanks for the good gifts of God’s creation at harvest time. In the readings for our worship, we often return to that original goodness in the Garden of Eden, described for us in the opening chapters of Genesis. We glimpse that scene of paradisal harmony in Lucas Cranach’s painting ‘Adam...

If you have done your best to live ‘right’, and still had nothing but trouble and heartache in your life, Alphonsus is the saint for you.   He was born in 1533, the son of a wool merchant in Segovia.  He followed his father into the profession, married, and had two children.   He was a responsible...