Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

Is your diary for 2020 already filling up?  That is fine, but also bear in mind what has been called ‘the sacrament of the present moment.’ That is what the 17th century French Jesuit and spiritual writer Pere Jean-Pierre de Caussade called it.  He wrote:  The present moment holds infinite riches, but you will only...

A million more over-50s are working part-time, as compared with ten years ago.  In fact, the UK’s part-time workforce is made up of more over-50s than any other age group. Experts says that the figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that older people today seem keen to avoid cutting themselves off from the...

Six Ways Baptist Church in Erdington, Birmingham has become the first Baptist church to be awarded Church of Sanctuary status. The accreditation recognises the church’s commitment to being a safe and welcoming place for all, especially those seeking sanctuary. This includes people who have had to flee their homeland in fear of their lives. The idea of...

The Clergy Support Trust, formerly Sons & Friends of the Clergy, helps Anglican clergy and their families in times of need with various grants. This year, they are seeking to double the number of clergy and families whom they reach, offering assistance with financial support grants, health grants, emergency grants, wellbeing grants, and debt support....

Never under-estimate a deacon.  After all, the first-ever Christian martyr was a deacon in the church of Jerusalem – St Stephen.   And the first-ever Christian martyr in Spain was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa – St Vincent. By now it was 304 AD, and the Roman Emperor Diocletian was persecuting Christians.  When his...

The Rectory St. James the Least My dear Nephew Darren Your idea for our two churches to hold a combined New Year’s Day walk was an admirable one, although I could sense a certain clash of cultures when your party arrived at the starting point with boots, waterproofs and GPS equipment. Our own group, rather...

I cannot pray ‘our’ if I am not in communion with fellow Christians. I cannot pray ‘Father’ if I do not treat Him as such, on a daily basis. I cannot pray ‘Who are in Heaven” if all my interests are on earthly things. I cannot pray ‘hallowed by thy name’ if I am not...

We live in a world where we can expect the sun to rise tomorrow and the milk to pour out of the bottle when we tilt it over our cereal. But for God, the properties of matter and the biological processes that we know and read about in text-books are simply the usual ways He...

January is a month of the beginning of great things!  As well as the naming of the Son of God, we celebrate the conversion of the greatest ever apostle of the Christian faith.  Many books have been written on Paul, and here is the briefest of introductions. He was a Jew, born as ‘Saul’ at...

An Anglican church leader has explained the Church’s official stance on yoga in churches after a church in Devon rejected a request from a yoga instructor to hold a class in its church hall. Archdeacon Mark Butchers of Barnstaple, who oversees churches in North Devon, told the news site Devon Live that Church of England...

A former asylum seeker who escaped the clutches of Islamic extremists has recently been ordained as a Church of Scotland minister. Raheel Arif was inducted into Denny Old Parish Church linked with Haggs Parish Church and will become its first full-time spiritual leader for five and a half years. The 47-year-old said he was very...

Christian theology played a part in the stereotyping and persecution of Jewish people which ultimately led to the Holocaust, according to a new reflection on Christian-Jewish relations issued by the Church of England. The teaching document, entitled God’s Unfailing Word, is the first authoritative statement on the subject from the Church of England. It speaks...