Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

The Bethlehem manger, shepherds, wise men, Jesus, Mary and Joseph – it’s all so familiar to older people, who are shocked to hear that younger generations may be hazy or ignorant of them.  Aren’t they part of everyone’s education? Yet the first Christmas was restricted to just a few. What 21st Century Christians proclaim as the...

Did you know that mince pies have been traditional English Christmas fare since the Middle Ages, when meat was a key ingredient?  The addition of spices, suet and alcohol to meat came about because it was an alternative to salting and smoking in order to preserve the food. Mince pies used to be a different...

The President-Elect of the Glasgow COP, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the CEO of London Stock Exchange Group have supported the landmark launch of the opening of the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre. The centre will provide free and publicly available in-depth data on how 10,000 companies are aligning with a net zero pathway, significantly scaling existing...

Angel Tree gives parents in prison the opportunity to send a Christmas present to their children. In 2020, the scheme sent out over 4,400 gifts. Christmas is especially difficult for prisoners and their children. Angel Tree lessens the devastation experienced because of parental absence by not only helping families connect, but by providing children with much-needed...

This Christmas, why not think about putting a Nativity scene in your front window, to remind passers-by of the real reason for Christmas?  And next Easter, you could put up a Christian poster or a Christian cross in your front window.

Christmas Presence Loving, Almighty God, Christmas Rush Bells Never Sound Any Sweeter The Word of Light Your Gift of Life – at Christmas ** Christmas Presence (Isa 9:6, 7:14) Unto us a child is born To us a son is given…   And you will call Him Immanuel, God with us.   Jesus, God actually...

  Just 30 years ago, on 25th December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union, and the next day the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. The remaining Soviet republics became independent states. Mr Gorbachev had wanted to keep the Soviet Union together, and his policies of glasnost and perestroika had been part...

Daily Hope, a free phone line which offers prayers and support for callers, receives nearly 20,000 calls every month. The service, which was launched during the Covid-19 lockdown, has spent more than 7.15 million minutes on more than 550,000 calls. The phone line originally launched in April 2020, only to continue in response to ongoing...

Everyone knows that it was on the feast of Stephen that ‘good king Wenceslas looked on’.  After all, it’s in a Christmas carol – but why? There’s nothing about Christmas in it: a splendid young page who rustled up some flesh, wine and logs, an old man out in the snow (’deep and crisp and...

If you and your partner have rows about how hot the house should be this Christmas, bear this in mind: women really do need the heat turned up more than men do. Recent research has found that the difference in the sexes also applies to other species, from mammals to birds. As one scientist at...

Be kind to the wildlife in your garden – what little of it remains. The UK is one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries, and it may not even have enough biodiversity – variety of plant and animal life – to prevent an ecological meltdown. That is the finding of new data by the Natural...

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...