Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

TQ – Tingle Quotient – is the name given to those things that can produce a tingle down the spine or a frisson of excitement. It could be a piece of music or the sight of an evening sunset at sea.  We look, we hear, and our sense of wonder as something sublime unfolds before...

One hundred years ago this month, on 21st August 1920, Christopher Robin Milne was born. He was the only son of the author A. A. Milne and appeared as a character in his father’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories and verses – a role he enjoyed at first but later found difficult to handle. The characters in Winnie...

If you enjoy reading the Bible and in encouraging others to have faith in God, then Dominic is the patron saint for you. His passion for helping Christians to learn and proclaim their faith led him to found the Order of Preachers, or Black Friars, because of the black cape they wore over white habits....

It was 125 years ago this month, on 10th August 1895, that the Proms (Promenade Concerts) began in London. In fact, the idea of promenade concerts went back to 1838, referring to outside concerts during which the audience could walk about – but in the form introduced by Robert Newman at Queen’s Hall in Langham...

The Mothers’ Union is now more than 140 years old. It has accomplished a staggering amount in that time, and nowadays numbers more than four million members, doing good work in 83 countries.  That is a far cry from the modest circle of prayer for mothers who cared about family life, which is how it...

By Rhidian Brook, SPCK, £9.99 For 20 years, bestselling novelist Rhidian Brook has pondered such questions as ‘Why bother with God?’, ‘What matters in life?’, ‘Why doesn’t God intervene?’  on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.  He has encouraged, nudged, and sometimes provoked millions into thinking about the possibility of a God who is intimately and...

– why your purpose matters By Rich Wilson, SPCK, £9.99 What is your calling?  It is a question that you can wrestle with at any stage of life. You might know that God has a plan for you, but how do you know what it is?  And – how do you pursue it once you...

Laurence was a deacon of the Church in Rome who was martyred in 258.  His story is found in the very ancient Depositio Martyrum, which tells us that he was closely associated with Pope Sixtus II, who was martyred just a few days before him during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian.   We also know...

Assisi, a beautiful town in the Italian province of Umbria, was the birth-place in the twelfth century of two of that country’s greatest saints, Francis and Clare. Francis first, and then Clare, discovered the liberating effect of release from the burden of wealth. For them simplicity, a godly poverty, was the way to blessing. Their...

– crises, faith and resilience By Roger Abbott and Robert White FRS, Monarch, £9.99 In a world where natural disasters are on the rise, Professor Robert White and Reverend Doctor Roger Abbott bring together a variety of voices explore how we respond, from both a practical and faith-lead viewpoint, to such tragedy. Including the stories...

Clare (1194 – 1253) was the famous virgin foundress of the Minoresses or Poor Clares.  Born at Assisi of the Offreduccio family, Clare grew up to hear the teaching of St Francis of Assisi, and at 18 she renounced all her possessions and joined him at the Portiuncula, where she became a nun.  Soon Francis...

In the year 1212 Clare, the 18-year-old daughter of a local Count, heard a young preacher called Francis. A few years earlier he had caused a sensation in the centre of the town where they both lived, Assisi in Italy, by stripping himself of his wealthy clothes and declaring that from now on he would...