Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at your Church

More than 50,000 people were killed, and tens of thousands injured, when the massive earthquake in Turkey and Syria struck on 6th February, causing thousands of homes and buildings to collapse across a vast area. Only a week later, on 13th February, the Christian aid agency Samaritan’s Purse opened an Emergency Field Hospital in Turkey,...

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) is soon to launch what it calls a “fully refreshed and re-energised money coaching course.” The course aims to help people learn to manage their finances, and will include new teaching, a new online budgeting tool for use on a smartphone, and greater flexibility in how to use the content. The...

Together is the UK trade magazine for Christian resources, distributed to almost every UK Christian publisher and retailer, as well as hundreds of churches and over 500 Christian authors. Published by Cedar Tree until the end of 2022, the magazine is relaunched this month (May) by Onwards and Upwards Publishers, a member of the Evangelical Alliance. Together has...

If you are contacted by a clergyman asking you for money, beware! It is a scammer. Scammers have been impersonating various clergy, including even the Archbishop of York, to ask priests and other church people to buy them Amazon vouchers and online gift cards. The scammers use either emails or texts, and their message is...

We still enjoy ‘going to church’ online.  In fact, recent viewing figures for the CofE’s national online services reveal that they continue to receive about 150,000 views a week. Overall, in 2022, they attracted more than eight million views. It was in March this year that the C of E marked three years since the...

The Church Urban Fund (CUF) reports that many churches have responded with “love and compassion” to the various needs of 9,000 Afghan refugees who have been living in temporary ‘bridging hotels’ for the past 18 months. As the government now takes steps to move the Afghans into settled accommodation, CUF wants the government to “ensure...

The aid agency Tearfund has been praised for the way in which it helps poor communities in Africa. It develops and supports them by working through their own local churches. Such a model has been found to produce “significant social value”. So says the research consultancy State of Life, which surveyed nearly 8000 responses from Rwanda,...

“All you who pass by….” More volunteers needed to ring church bells for the King Ukraine:  church leaders targeted by Russian forces Christians called to support local media The launch of ‘Bell Sunday’ in May When should people not be allowed to strike? ** Editor:  The Ven John Barton visited York Minster last Good Friday...

For Good Friday last year, the morning service at York Minister was offered online for everyone to see, anywhere in the world. It’s the most solemn day of the year. Hymns, readings, prayers: all focussed on Christ’s death and its benefits for humanity, for all time. A hundred or so people were in the congregation, alongside choir...

The Coronation’s ‘Ring for the King’ challenge is still urgently looking for more volunteers – several thousand more of them, in fact. The new recruits will be needed if all the church bells in the country are to be rung on 6th May, the day of the Coronation. As we go to press, so far...

Church leaders in Ukraine are being singled out for persecution by Russian forces in occupied areas. Some pastors have been arrested, interrogated, tortured, and even expelled from their towns by the Russian military and their supporters. Occupying forces have confiscated church buildings and Christians have received harsher treatment at Russian military checkpoints, say partners of...

What happens locally really matters… and local news matters massively. I believe, as a Christian minister, that churches and congregations have a calling to encourage community-based journalism and professional coverage of our localities. In the UK, a recent report by MPs highlighted the major challenges facing local media. Much advertising revenue has been driven online,...