Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at God

“Thank you” – “I’m sorry” – “I forgive you” – “I love you”. These are the most common words spoken by people in their last moments of consciousness before dying. That’s what Dr Kathryn Mannix tells us, and she should know, having spent her whole career working alongside dying people, and learning from them. Her YouTube...

The Heart of Christmas From the Vicar Spiritual Disciplines: Celebration Preparations The Light of the World No Room?  On the Contrary The Most Beautiful Story No one Name is big enough! A Season for joyful song  Christmas all wrapped up!  The story behind the hymn:  O Come, All ye Faithful All faiths are not the...

We’re at that time of year again! But is Christmas just about the shopping, tree or presents? At its heart, Christmas is all about a God who has showed up on earth. The Creator of the universe, whose hands flung stars into space, cared enough to come to earth as a tiny baby.  ‘The Word...

During the month of December, people are ‘counting down’ to Christmas Day in an ever- increasing variety of ways. In my childhood we had a simple card with a traditional picture of a manger scene with doors marked with the countdown numbers and a picture of the different characters behind each.  If my parents had...

We’re at that time of year again! But is Christmas just about the shopping, tree or presents? At its heart Christmas is all about a God who has showed up on earth. The Creator of the universe, whose hands flung stars into space, cared enough to come to earth as a tiny baby.  ‘The Word...

This year one carol will be sung with particular poignancy.  It retells the message of angels, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favour rests” and continues: Yet with the woes of sin and strife, The world has suffered long; Beneath the angel strain have rolled,...

‘But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.’ (Luke 2:10). As we conclude our series on the spiritual disciplines, this month we look at Celebration, which is very appropriate for this Christmas season. We are called to rejoice in...

Christmas is a time for making plans. Presents to buy, cards to send, decorations to put up, food to order, travel arrangements to make… the list goes on and on. But whether our plans are ambitious or simple this Christmas, we still dread anything going wrong. Yet plans seemed to fall apart that first Christmas....

A well-known atheist was once interviewed on Radio 4. When asked how he spent Christmas, and he said that he went to Midnight Mass at church.  ‘But you’re an atheist’, his interviewer protested. ‘Yes’, he replied, ‘but what they celebrate at Christmas is the most beautiful story ever told’. That ‘beautiful story’ tells of a...

Sometimes people are given a name to match their beginnings.  When a young woman in Kenya gave birth in the back of a missionary’s car, on her way to hospital, she then decided to call her little boy MOTAKA! (Her attempt at ‘motor car’.) Centuries ago, a little boy was born in a Middle Eastern...

Some of us like to sing, no matter what we may sound like to others!  And sometimes, something happens that is so special that we can’t help but burst into song. In the Christmas story, singing is featured on three occasions. When Mary visited her elderly relative, Elizabeth, she was so overwhelmed with happiness at...

“And this will be a sign to you, you will find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Luke 2:2 Do you ever dread wrapping all those Christmas presents? The large roll of fragile paper that slides around on the table, the lumpy gifts that defy wrapping, the tape that sticks to...