Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

Spare a thought for John the Baptist: however rough your local sandwich bar may be, it probably doesn’t serve you locusts with a honey dip; you won’t be imprisoned for saying derogatory things about the local MP’s wife, and even the boss from hell is unlikely to have a daughter who wants to hip-hop about...

Summertime outdoor living reminds us just how close we live to our neighbours. How well you live beside them can make a huge impact on your life. If you are happy with your neighbours, it is hugely beneficial. One behavioural psychologist says: “Even just sharing a kind smile and eye contact with a neighbour is...

Psalm 23 is well loved, and its paraphrased words are often sung in the popular hymn The Lord’s My Shepherd. At the time of Jesus, these labourers were everywhere, as sheep were a common commodity. So when Jesus described a shepherd, He was referring to someone the people all knew about. Our Lord’s description of...

Newly appointed Church Buildings Support Officers have been speaking about their roles in providing practical advice and expertise to Church of England parishes. £3.2 million was awarded last year for CBSOs in 33 dioceses, and three partner organisations, providing parishes with advice on the management, conservation, repair and development of church buildings, including community use...

Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is partnering with an unusual programme which reaches out to traumatised refugees in Bidibidi, in northern Uganda, the world’s second largest refugee settlement. ‘Brass for Africa’ is a music programme that visits the settlement twice a week, bringing joy to hundreds of stranded people who have barely survived the horrors of...

It was 250 years ago, on 1st August 1774, that oxygen was discovered by British chemist Joseph Priestley. He was the first scientist to publish his findings on the discovery. Born in Yorkshire, Priestley was the eldest son of a strongly Calvinist textile maker, but after his mother’s early death he spent much of his...

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, has paid tribute to the composer Sir John Rutter who has been knighted in the recent King’s Birthday Honours List. Bishop Guli said: “Warmest congratulations to John Rutter on being awarded a knighthood in The King’s Birthday Honours. His enormous contribution to sacred choral music as a composer,...

Have you ever got into trouble while abroad? The story is told of a group of tourists who went to a Mediterranean country and wanted to see the sites of an old city. Four members of the group got so engrossed in taking pictures of each other by a castle that they ignored the summons...

Archbishop Stephen Cottrell has recently become a patron for the new organisation, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches. He said: “I’m delighted to continue encouraging churches to offer support for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma.” Archbishop Stephen introduced the 2019 General Synod debate ‘Centuries of Marginalisation and Visions of Hope’ which called for the Church to...

After the Bible, John Bunyan’s wonderful Christian allegory, the Pilgrim’s Progress, is one of the most celebrated and widely-read books in the English language.  It has been translated into more than one hundred languages around the world and keeps its place as a Christian classic. Names of people and places from its pages have been...

Three hundred years ago, on 25th August 1724, George Stubbs was born in Liverpool. Best known for his paintings of horses, he lived mainly in the north of England at first, but eventually his success enabled him to move to Marylebone in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. Fascinated by anatomy,...

As summer will soon turn to the cool of autumn, the Warm Welcome Campaign has recently announced that it is beginning a ‘new chapter’. It explains: “What started as a crisis response to keep people warm through the winter has blossomed into a movement to reconnect individuals and communities across the country all year round.”...