Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

During the cost-of-living crisis, Food Banks have become a necessity for many desperate families. When they are given food, people reveal a variety of emotions, from relief, happiness, and hope, to quiet sadness, resignation, and desperation. Most often they display a mixture of several of these feelings at the same time. I believe that our...

‘Solitude is a time when we withdraw from the company of others in order to give God our undivided attention’ (John Ortberg). The spiritual discipline of solitude is about spending time alone with God, to grow in relationship with Him and hear Him more clearly. This practice was a priority in Jesus’ life and ministry,...

Four hundred years ago, on 4th July 1623, William Byrd, the English Renaissance composer, died. Regarded as one of the greatest of all British composers, he is best known for his sacred music. However, he wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, and his many-faceted but unique music is still...

How are the refugees who have come to the UK getting along? This month we continue our short series, with another story:  From the Revd Stephen Croft in Cheriton: Aziz came to us in the shadow of a friend, Habib, who was looking for a church to go to. They had fled Iran, because they dared...

Do you tend to avoid conflict?  When you feel stressed, do you crave sleep?  Then the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus would be good patron saints for you.  But – you may find it hard to copy their successful method of avoiding trouble! Legend has it that The Seven Sleepers were third century Christians who lived...

Here you can download, in one document, ALL of the editorial material for July 2023.

The pulpit is one of the four most obvious pieces of ‘furniture’ in a church; the others being the lectern, altar and the font. Today the pulpit is where the preacher stands to give the sermon during a service. It is generally raised higher than the chairs or pews, so the preacher can be seen...

If you led a wild life before your conversion, then Olaf is the saint for you. Indeed, anything you have done could hardly match him, for he was a brigand and pirate who roamed the Baltic and Normandy around 1015 AD, maiming and killing, stealing and destroying, feared by all. Then on one particular raid...

The House of Bishops has set out key areas in which it is requesting further work from the implementation groups who are taking forward the recent decision of General Synod on offering prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and for God’s blessing for same-sex couples. The proposals debated at Synod, which were developed after a six-year period...

Henry Moore, the British sculptor and illustrator best known for his monumental semi-abstract bronze sculptures, was born 125 years ago, on 30th July 1898, in Castleford, a small mining town in Yorkshire. He knew he wanted to be a sculptor from an early age, having heard at Sunday school about Michelangelo’s life and work. But...

During the 18th century many people in England were involved in the campaign to abolish the slave trade.  The CofE remembers especially William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson – three very different but all tireless campaigners against the evil practice. Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) was an Anglican clergyman and one of the most prominent of...

When the US President Joe Biden announced that he was running for re-election, many of us thought he was too old. He will be 86 by the end of 2028. Trump will be 82. How could either of them run the United States at such an age? The argument about Biden and Trump will doubtless...