Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

How many Christmas trees will you have this year? Last year many bored families, stuck at home during the festive season, decided to branch out and set up two or more Christmas trees – often one in a pot for the front of the house, and a bigger one inside. It seems that two trees...

Waiting is not popular in our culture, when so much can be obtained simply at the press of a button! Advent, when we wait for the coming of Christmas, is also an opportunity to learn what it means to be waiting for the promised return of Jesus. He says: ‘It’s like a man going away:...

Almost certainly not.  But the story of how that date came to be chosen as His ‘birthday’ is one that stretches back long before His birth. it seems to have started on the Greek island of Rhodes in 283 BC. That year the solstice fell on 25th December, and it was also the year that...

Churches across the country are now squaring up to the same challenges – and opportunities – that many local shops and businesses have faced for years. It’s all about the internet, and how it changes everything. In the pre-Covid world, services were held in churches, and people went to them. Or not. Throughout the lockdowns,...

Buy your children some books for Christmas. It seems that more books in your home in childhood can help stave off dementia in later life, according to a recent study. It found that children who are exposed to the written word from a young age, form more resilience against degenerative processes which can lead to...

Christians working in the media have been speaking about integrity and truth, and the challenges they face in their jobs. Several leading journalists took part in a recent special online service organised by the network Christians in Media. Lucy Denyer, associate editor of the Telegraph magazine, explained: “It can be a tough working environment. Journalists...

The Church Commissioners for England, a leading responsible investor, has been recognised for Excellence in ESG by the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA). The award comes at a time when the Commissioners are accelerating their engagement with companies and fund managers regarding climate change, diversity, inclusion and impact investment. In particular, the...

On the whole British people are happy with the title ‘Father Christmas’, a suitably neutral name for the central character in children’s Christmases, writes David Winter. In America, however, and by a process of cultural indoctrination increasingly in other English-speaking countries, the same red-coated and bearded fellow with his sack of presents is known as...

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on 25th December 1771, Dorothy Wordsworth – writer, poet and diarist – was born. She was sister to the poet William Wordsworth. She had no ambitions to be a published author herself, but her diaries – particularly the Grasmere Journal, eventually published in 1897 – reveal her to be a...

** Camels In Jane’s Christmas drawing, two of the camels were approaching the inn, over which was pictured a large star.  The third camel and its rider were going directly away from it. “Why is the third man going in a different direction?” her mother asked. Jane replied: “Oh, he’s looking for a place to...

It’s not easy getting the right Christmas present for others, especially in these uncertain times. However, the Magi’s gifts were entirely appropriate and help us to understand God’s gift of Jesus to us. ‘On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they...

Steve Biko, the South Africa anti-apartheid activist, was born 75 years ago, on 18th December 1946, in King William’s Town. He was a founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, and he was beaten and left for dead by state security officers in 1977, aged 30. He was raised in his family’s Anglican Christian faith, though...