Bishop Matthew contemplates the coming months not with hopeful cheerfulness but with an uneasy dread provoked by international upheavals, the unsettling evidence of a changing climate and, most immediately for many, a crippling cost of living crisis.
The focus of the Lambeth Conference is to discern the Holy Spirit’s directing in exploring what it means to be ‘God’s Church for God’s World’
On Saturday 23 July a team of people from churches in our diocese and other parts of the Midlands will be heading off to South Africa and Eswatini with the charity ‘Hands at Work, Africa’.
The summer holidays are coming! If you’re heading away, you might be thinking what books to enjoy on the sunny beach - or kill the time until the rainclouds pass. But there’s one blockbuster you can save for the autumn – and even have read aloud to you!
In the month of the platinum jubilee, Bishop Matthew ponders power and service
We are all called to demonstrate the extravagant love of God in acts of generous hospitality as we walk the journey of faith and life together.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could say that of every one of our young people - that they were healthy, wise, and they knew God’s grace? The challenge for us as Church and Community is simply what part are we willing to play in helping that to be the case.
I wonder what adjective you would choose to describe the experience of living through recent events? How about ‘overwhelming’?
Parishes all over the country are seeing new houses being built. There is a role for all churches to play in these new developments. Here are some simple ideas to consider.
As the humanitarian catastrophe in Europe unfolds before our eyes, signs of hope for more vulnerable people are more important to our emotional survival than ever. So here's one you may not have spotted yet.
Hope and truth are our reference points says Bishop Michael as he battles to untwist an adjective in this month's Chad Blog.
Bishop Clive on levelling up and filling the hungry with good things
November is sometimes the month of the Church’s new year, as Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas day – this year that’s 28 November. It’s a time Dr Lindsey Hall finds always brings joy.
Revd David Sims on his venture into the world of pithy social media
Join the St. Winefride’s Pilgrimage, a 70 mile journey from Holywell in Wales, to Shrewsbury between Easter and Pentecost next year.Â
Matthew Lefroy looks at how sport can be a vital tool of outreach among young people.
People affected by dementia live through unchosen challenges. Within our Diocese of Lichfield dementia-friendly churches network, we are focusing this autumn on three pictures that help us to see the bigger picture, noticing God’s presence as dementia progresses.
Venturing out more, in recent weeks, has been a strange and rather unsettling experience. Like traversing a landscape that seems familiar but strangely altered. The world has changed in ways both subtle and significant.
September's Chad Blog comes from the Bishop of Stafford
As August draws to a close and most return home from summer holidays, Revd Philip Swan brings out some souvenirs
September is always the start of a new school year, and this one perhaps with more hopes than the last. Alex Wolvers, the diocese’s Mission in Schools Enabler certainly has...
Bishop Sarah's thoughts for August's Chad Blog
Spoiler Alert! If you are intending to watch the recent BBC prison drama ‘Time’ on catch up then read no further, at least until you have watched it…
Many churches responded swiftly when covid restrictions were introduced in March 2020, with children’s, family and youth ministry being at the heart of the response. Research from Allchurches Trust gives an interesting insight into how hundreds of churches fared with engaging with children and young people during lockdown.
Bishop Sarah's thoughts for June's Chad Blog
The parliament and councils of the Church of England are up for election this year - Julie Jones explains:
As we emerge blinking into the light of a post-Covid world, we need to be kind and generous to one another as we adjust to an uncertain future.
Pilgrimage is at its deepest a form of devotion. This holds true whether we are able to go on the traditional long walks together to do it, or not. ‘Pilgrimage of the mind’ is an equally ancient practice.
Seeing the world and life through a very different lens
In the first of an occasional series, John Bentley shares his experience of sudden partial sight loss and how it's affected his perception of the church
