Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at your Church

– Church of England online service Jesus accompanies those experiencing grief, loneliness, and sadness. That was the message of a recent national online service. In a sermon recorded at St Nicholas Church in Rattlesden, Suffolk, where she is Rector, the Rev Sharon Grenham-Thompson spoke of her grief for her teenage son Leo, who died in...

Care Homes are one type of communal establishments measured by the Office for National Statistics in the 2021 Census. In 2022, there were 408,371 people living in care homes across the United Kingdom. Some residents enjoy regular visits from family or friends, while others lead a very lonely life. Some will ‘pass on’ relatively quickly, while others...

Crisis Appeal from ‘Embrace the Middle East’ Bible Society runs trauma healing programmes in Gaza and Israel Why funerals are going out of fashion Visiting other churches World Leprosy Day 2024 – 28th January Remember the Christians of Lebanon this year Grim outlook for people in poverty in the UK Christians kidnapped in Nigeria **...

The Christian charity ‘Embrace the Middle East’ (Embrace) has launched a crisis appeal to raise support for its Christian partners in Gaza and Israel, as they seek to help those affected by the war. Embrace reports that the recent pause in fighting has given its partners on the ground time to take some action:  Al...

Bible Society teams in the Middle East are working among traumatised people on both sides of the conflict. Alongside food and other essentials, they are offering a Bible-based trauma healing programme that gives damaged people a chance to talk through their experience with trained facilitators. Through this programme, thousands of refugees are experiencing the Bible...

Less than half of the UK population now want their death to be marked with a funeral. So says a major new research report called Love, Grief, and Hope: Emotional responses to death and dying in the UK, by the religion and society think tank Theos. The findings are based on polling commissioned from YouGov,...

‘… this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord … (Psalm 27:4) The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is this month (18th – 25th January), so it’s probably a good time to meet...

World Leprosy Day is always the last Sunday of January. It aims to raise awareness of a disease that is at least 4,000 years old, making it one of the oldest diseases known to humanity. Leprosy still exists! Around 200,000 people are diagnosed with leprosy each year, and many millions are living with leprosy-related disabilities,...

As 2024 begins, the eyes of the world are on the wars in Israel-Gaza and Ukraine-Russia. But meanwhile the economic and financial crisis in Lebanon is spiralling out of control. The World Bank puts it starkly: “Lebanon has been assailed by the most devastating, multi-pronged crisis in its modern history.” Just one statistic: Lebanon recorded...

January always brings us a financial reckoning, but this year things look especially grim for many people in the UK. Recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that one in five people in the UK are living in poverty. In real terms, that’s a staggering 13.4 million people. Some recent sobering statistics from...

Last year a report by UK parliamentarians heard that almost 90 per cent of all the Christians kidnapped worldwide are abducted in Nigeria. According to the charity, Aid to the Church in Need, about 5,200 Christians were kidnapped in Nigeria between January 2021 and June 2022. And last year another 23 clergy and church workers...

War in Gaza and Israel Israel and Gaza: how should we respond? Nativity Quiz in 20 Questions Food Banks across the UK may be facing their ‘worst winter’ yet Can you get benefits? Chinese Churches growing fast in the UK Help people out of modern slavery Christians in India face rising violence Hunger in Zimbabwe...