Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at God

More people join health and fitness centres each January than at any other time of the year. And well over half the newcomers will be gone again – within a month. Perhaps there’s not much commitment to begin with. Or maybe, they lack motivation because they haven’t made themselves accountable to a personal trainer. (One...

‘…and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’ John 12:3 A story runs of how a lady was having tea outside a tea shop late one afternoon, when she became aware of a pleasant scent filling the air. She asked the waiter the source of the scent and was told that it...

Advent From the Vicar A Christmas Gift What a Christmas Amazed! Music for the Messiah When someone you loved is dead ** Editor:  The Revd Canon Paul Hardingham on waiting for Christmas. Advent Waiting is not popular in our culture, when so much can be obtained simply at the press of a button! Advent, when...

Waiting is not popular in our culture, when so much can be obtained simply at the press of a button! Advent, when we wait for the coming of Christmas, is also an opportunity to learn what it means to be waiting for the promised return of Jesus. He says: ‘It’s like a man going away:...

Waiting is not popular in our culture, when so much can be obtained simply at the press of a button! Advent, when we wait for the coming of Christmas, is also an opportunity to learn what it means to be waiting for the promised return of Jesus. He says: ‘It’s like a man going away:...

It’s not easy getting the right Christmas present for others, especially in these uncertain times. However, the Magi’s gifts were entirely appropriate and help us to understand God’s gift of Jesus to us. ‘On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they...

The Bethlehem manger, shepherds, wise men, Jesus, Mary and Joseph – it’s all so familiar to older people, who are shocked to hear that younger generations may be hazy or ignorant of them.  Aren’t they part of everyone’s education? Yet the first Christmas was restricted to just a few. What 21st Century Christians proclaim as the...

Some people like surprises. The pleasant ones, anyway! When we look at the Christmas story, it is full of surprises. Mary didn’t expect to be chosen by God to give birth to His Son. Joseph was surprised and shocked that his fiancée was pregnant. The couple thought they would start married life together in Nazareth,...

Have you noticed that, in the Christmas story, singing is featured on three occasions? Firstly, after Mary was given a message from the angel Gabriel, and was visiting her elderly and pregnant relative, Elizabeth. Mary was so overwhelmed with happiness at the forthcoming miraculous births, she started to sing. Over the years, her words, known...

Following on from last month, the other lessons that I learned following my wife’s death were: That it helps to talk about your loss and the person you have lost. Sharing helps you to put things together in your mind, and is healing in itself. Don’t be afraid of pain, and don’t anaesthetise it or...

Caring for Creation From the Vicar Lest We Forget Remembrance When someone you loved is dead How to tell your life story – and how to make changes to it Reflected Faith Series: The Bread We Share Should a Christian go to war? Waiting for the Future ** Editor:  Canon Paul Hardingham considers the COP26...

This month sees the eagerly anticipated COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. As Christians, we need to hold together two key insights, if we are to engage with the challenge of climate change: The world is not ours: ‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ (Psalm 24:1). The world is not ours, but God’s!...