Churchyards are very important places for those whose loved ones are buried there, but a survey of visitors to some churchyards in Sussex found that they are often visited by people who value their peace and beauty. The Churchyard Award Scheme has been running for over 30 years. It’s run by volunteers to celebrate the work of volunteers in maintaining and developing churchyards and church gardens across the diocese of Lichfield.
Emails, debate and Lent
The Community of St Chad is a community founded on companion groups of three people who meet to pray together and who live out five Rhythms of Grace.
Bishop Sarah has been blogging after a recent revelation:
This resource is born of personal experience. My dad died in 2018 and he was diagnosed with dementia ten years earlier. He’d been a solicitor in Birmingham and spent his working life making incisive, head-level connections. The journey of the last decade of his life was a journey from head to heart.
The Difference course, designed and produced by Archbishop Justin Welby’s reconciliation team, is made up of five sessions exploring the power of faith to transform our relationships and heal division.
The enchanting story of the Wise Men visiting the infant Jesus has a sting in its tail. Archdeacon Paul Thomas has been thinking about what this means as we mark the change of year and how the tale of Epiphany is so relevant today.
It's harder to receive than to give? Revd Chris Precious has experience in his Shropshire parishes.
There's no time like the present, according to Bishop Clive in his bishops' letter for December
Revd Chris Lane shares an insight into the most recent part of his journey around Walsall
Was the Queen misguided? Revd Zoe Hemmings on having her own prejudice challenged by a good friend.
Bishop Sarah recently experienced moments where the world seemed to stand still despite being in the middle of cosmopolitan chaos, hearing about the risks some take to engage in building peace and reconciliation.
It's the month of new beginnings - new school and university terms. We usually think it's for the young, not those approaching retirement. Revd Charmaine Host asks us to think again.
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.
