Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

Christmas is a time for making plans. Presents to buy, cards to send, decorations to put up, food to order, travel arrangements to make… the list goes on and on. But whether our plans are ambitious or simple this Christmas, we still dread anything going wrong. Yet plans seemed to fall apart that first Christmas....

The General Synod of the Church of England met last month (November) to discuss the steps being taken to implement texts known as Prayers of Love and Faith, which ask for God’s blessing for same-sex couples. In February of this year, Synod agreed a motion welcoming the texts and calling on The House of Bishops to...

A well-known atheist was once interviewed on Radio 4. When asked how he spent Christmas, and he said that he went to Midnight Mass at church.  ‘But you’re an atheist’, his interviewer protested. ‘Yes’, he replied, ‘but what they celebrate at Christmas is the most beautiful story ever told’. That ‘beautiful story’ tells of a...

Do you stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve? If so, this year will be special – it is 100 years ago, on 31st December 1923, that the BBC first broadcast the chimes of Big Ben to welcome in the New Year. For it was not until 31st December 1923 that the chimes of...

Matthew 1:18            Joseph’s dilemma This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit….” It is not clear at what point Mary told Joseph the news of her pregnancy,...

The National Flood Forum has a range of good tips and advice on how to prepare for the worst.  Go to: https://nationalfloodforum.org.uk/about-flooding/preparing/emergency-flood-kit/

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) has launched a campaign to help people gain access to the various benefits that are going unclaimed by eligible households. CAP estimates that in the past year, almost £90 million in benefits has gone unclaimed,  because of the complexity of the application systems. Pension credit is the most under-claimed benefit, and...

Sometimes people are given a name to match their beginnings.  When a young woman in Kenya gave birth in the back of a missionary’s car, on her way to hospital, she then decided to call her little boy MOTAKA! (Her attempt at ‘motor car’.) Centuries ago, a little boy was born in a Middle Eastern...

Some of us like to sing, no matter what we may sound like to others!  And sometimes, something happens that is so special that we can’t help but burst into song. In the Christmas story, singing is featured on three occasions. When Mary visited her elderly relative, Elizabeth, she was so overwhelmed with happiness at...

With Christmas in mind… For history the really strong argument in favour of the virgin birth is the difficulty of accounting for the story otherwise than on the assumption of its truth. – H R Mackintosh  At Christmas, play and make good cheer; for Christmas comes but once a year. – Thomas Tusser Christ veiled...

Have you ever stopped to consider that the very first martyr of the Christian Church (Stephen died c 35 AD) was a deacon?  (But no, he wasn’t worked to death by his church.)  It was Stephen, one of the first seven deacons of the Christian Church.  He’d been appointed by the apostles to look after...

The Church of England has published a set of National Safeguarding Standards. They will serve as an ‘essential benchmark,’ enabling Church bodies to identify both their strengths and areas for development, which will in turn inform their strategic planning in respect of safeguarding. The five Standards have been developed after three years of consultation, and...