Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

The shark that came to Amity Island for dinner – most people aged 60 and over remember him as the scariest fish they ever saw.  As this summer the famous film celebrates its golden anniversary, here are some fun facts about the film which you may not have known… When Jaws was released in the...

‘Online’ or ‘Live streaming’ services essentially started during the Covid lockdowns in 2020, as many churches filmed their services and broadcast them through YouTube or other channels.  It was difficult to know how many of their members actually watched these services, although YouTube did count the number watching at any particular moment. The Church of...

From The Rectory St James the Least of All My dear Nephew Darren Anyone who thinks that the English are a peaceful race has obviously never organised the annual pumpkin growing competition. Very regrettably, one of the Pilgrim Fathers sent a handful of pumpkin seeds to a relation in this parish in the 17th century...

Diaspora churches in Scotland welcome over 22,000 to their services each week, with a new congregation having started every eight weeks since 2000. So says research published late last year. What is a ‘diaspora’ church? One largely made up of those who have spread or been dispersed from their homeland. In the 2021 UK population census, some 10.7...

The Church Commissioners’ funding towards work of the church is set to leap by 36 per cent in the three-year period 2026-28, amounting to the biggest distribution in Church’s history. The C of E plans to invest more than £1.6 billion towards sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and serving local communities over the next three...

After the Bible, John Bunyan’s wonderful Christian allegory, the Pilgrim’s Progress, is one of the most celebrated and widely-read books in the English language.  It has been translated into more than one hundred languages around the world and keeps its place as a Christian classic. Names of people and places from its pages have been...

This summer, why not encourage your children to read a book?  A recent study has found that children who read for pleasure carry the benefits with them far into adulthood. And the most avid childhood readers score far higher on vocabulary tests, even 30 years later.   As Marcel Proust the author once said, there are...

A new booklet of biblical reflections and prayers, We Believe: Exploring the Nicene Creed, has been recently released to support churches, small groups and individuals as Christians around the world mark the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Commissioned to mark 1700 years since the Nicene Creed’s original development, and published by Church House...

** August is the month of music and arts festivals…. Sounds Music festival as parent drops off teenagers… Daughter:  Did you ever hear anything so amazing as that band? Father:  Well, I once heard a collision between a milk float and a little van filled with ducks. ** Go on The critic started to leave...

Pope Leo has some surprising relatives. For one, he is related to the pop singer Madonna, who has clashed with the Roman Catholic Church over her use of religious imagery. But the Pope is also related to politician Hilary Clinton, actress Angelina Jolie, pop star Justin Bieber, former prime ministers Justin and Pierre Trudeau, and...

The phone was a great invention. How easy, to press a few numbers on our small devices and speak to someone the other side of the world. Once a phone was a luxury item; now we take it for granted that this gadget in our pocket enables us to contact anyone, at any time, in...

31st August is the feast of St Aidan, who brought Christianity to northern England.  He is a strong contender for the title of the first English bishop. Not that honours meant a great deal to this austere but captivating character. In 635 he came to Northumbria at the invitation of the local ruler, Oswald.  Oswald...