Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

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...

This month, on 25th January, the Church celebrates probably the most famous conversion of all. At least, what happened to a young man called Saul on the road to Damascus has become a byword for all instant conversions – what is known as a ‘damascene’ moment. Saul was a devout Jew, a Pharisee, a student...

Growing insecurity in Iraq and on its border could lead to a fresh exodus of Christians from the country, warns a partner of Release International, which is supporting refugees in the country. Only around 300,000 Christians remain in Iraq from a peak of 1.8 million in the year 2000. They’ve been driven out by conflict...

We live in one world where the homeless are our collective responsibility, the Revd Dr Barbara Glasson said in a recent visit to Whitechapel Mission in London.  The mission serves about 300 breakfasts each day to the homeless. Whitechapel Mission, in the heart of the East End of London, recently celebrated its 143rd anniversary. Open...