Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

It is Christmas Eve and you are looking forward to having a well-earned break. It is a good opportunity to catch up on reading your parish magazine, and to go to church. Your boss, Ebenezer, told you a week ago that the office would be closed over Christmas as there was no-one for him to...

By Amy Scott Robinson, BRF, £8.99 As we look towards celebrating the incarnation at Christmas, we consider how God chose to express Himself, in a moment in history, as a tiny baby. But what other images describe God in the Bible, and what can we learn about His character through them? How does an invisible...

A Midwinter festival has been a part of life since pre-Christian times. When the hours of daylight are fewest, the warmth of the sun weakest, and life itself seemingly at a standstill, our ancestors, the pagan peoples of Europe and Western Asia, kept festival by lighting bonfires and decorating their buildings with evergreens. Perhaps they...

Thinking of getting your family a dog this Christmas?  On the plus side, here is an interesting statistic: dog owners have a 24 per cent reduced risk of all-cause mortality and are 65 per cent less likely to die after a heart attack. Such were the recent findings of researchers at the American Heart Association. ...

By Paula Gooder & Peter Babington, CHP, £2.99 Following the popularity of Love Life Live Advent for Kids, this edition for Adults and Youth offers a prayer activity for every day of December up to Christmas Day, designed to enrich your understanding of the season of waiting and preparation. Each activity is accompanied by a...

If you are attending various Christmas social events this month, consider this: when you shake hands with someone, how long should you hold on for?   It seems that the ideal time is no more than three seconds. Recent research at the University of Dundee found that shaking someone’s hand in a ‘prolonged manner’ (longer than...

Shopping The manager of a department store put this notice in the window: ‘If you need it this Christmas, we have it.’  But in the window of a rival, a sign appeared, stating: ‘If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.’ ** Wise? When I told my children the story of how the Wise...

By Mina Munns, Justin Welby and John Sentamu, CHP, £1.50 Follow the Star returns for 2019 with 12 brand-new reflections for the Christmas period.   Each day includes a reflection, a short Bible passage, a simple prayer and a challenge to reflect or act differently. Wherever you are on your own journey, Follow the Star will...

Christmas is a time for giving, and we do it well.  The British have been ranked among the most generous nations in the world, after a recent study found that six out of ten of us have helped a stranger in the past month. The research, which surveyed 1.3 million people in 128 countries over...

How do you celebrate Christmas Eve?  It has its own customs, the most popular of which is going to Midnight Mass, or the Christ-Mas.  This is the only Mass of the year that is allowed to start after sunset.  In Catholic countries such as Spain, Italy and Poland, Midnight Mass is in fact the most...

It is the Moravians whom we have to thank for bringing us the Christingle.  Especially one Moravian clergyman: John de Watteville. On 20th December, 1747, John de Watteville was taking a children’s service in his Moravian church in Marienborn, Germany.   He led the children in some hymns, and read out verses which the children themselves...

For nearly four weeks leading up to Christmas Christians recognise a period called Advent.  It means ‘coming’.  It is a time of spiritual preparation.  ‘Coming’ refers to Jesus’ first coming as a baby, but it also looks forward to a day when Jesus is expected to return in triumph at his ‘second coming’ to establish...