Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

The last Sunday in November is the last Sunday of the church year, and in some ways the most important. Why?  Because everything else in the Christian year looks BACK on what happened 2000 years ago. The Sunday of Christ the King looks FORWARD to what we can expect next….  the return one day of Jesus...

 Recent research has found that ‘independence’ has overtaken ‘obedience’ in what we want from our children, but that having good manners is still seen as very important. The Policy Institute at King’s College London (KCL) found that parents value independence, good manners, hard work, determination, and perseverance in their children. They also prioritise imagination, tolerance,...

It was 60 years ago this month, on 22nd November, that the famous writer C S Lewis died.  This Irish-born British academic, novelist and literary critic is best known for his novels on The Chronicles of Narnia, and his books on Christian apologetics. Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast November 1898. He arrived in...

‘You’ll never amount to much’ said a Munich schoolteacher to the ten-year-old Albert Einstein. Good thing that he did not listen – and instead went on to prove his teacher wrong! Just as children need encouragement, so do God’s children. St Paul urged the Christians in his young churches to ‘encourage one another.’ (1 Thess...

Legislation clarifying that parish and town councils can provide support to churches for repairs and improvements has cleared its final stages in the House of Lords. A Government amendment to the Bill makes it clear that local authorities can provide grants for parish churches or places of worship, following many years of legal uncertainty. The...

The Rectory St James the Least of All My dear Nephew Darren I hear you have joined the committee which wants to convert the waste land between the abandoned soap factory and canal in your parish into allotments – although I would have thought there were holier sorts of conversions you could have concentrated on....

The Wisdom Pattern – order, disorder, reorder Stick with Love – Rejoicing in Every Tongue, Every Tribe, Every Nation Seeing the Light – poems One – Being United to Jesus Changes Everything The Manual – getting masculinity right Enjoying God – experience the power and love of God in everyday life ** The Wisdom Pattern...

Each month we have explored how art celebrates the wonder of our world – the seasons, the elements, animals and fish, flowers and fruit. They manifest the glory of God the creator. Irenaeus, the 2nd century theologian, went further and wrote that ‘the glory of God is a living person.’ He was echoing Psalm 8:...

The first meeting of the ‘Living With Difference’ group – who have been invited to be part of a series of three facilitated conversations around the Prayers of Love and Faith – was held in September. The members of the group included: Ade Adebajo (Elected member of the London Diocesan Synod); Simon Friend (Co-Convenor of the Evangelical...

The majority of young girls would rather own their own house than have a husband by the time they are 30. They also prioritise ‘having a worthwhile job’ and ‘earning a lot of money,’ before ‘having children’. These are some of the findings of the latest annual Girls’ Attitudes Survey by Girlguiding. More worrying, the...

Since 2000 the Church of England (C of E) has been collecting and publishing details about its Cathedrals. The attendance figures are vivid reminders of the effects of Covid-19. In the seven years from 2013 to 2019, the average total annual regular attendance in the C of E Cathedrals was 511,000 people. Three years later, in...

The soaring number of pothole-related breakdowns has been blamed on Britain’s wet summer. There are increasing calls for councils to fix the roads before winter. This past July was the UK’s sixth wettest on record, according to Met Office figures. The AA says that this would have made potholes even harder to spot, in time...