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The Ascension is a key Christian doctrine that receives very little attention in the textbooks on Christian doctrine most widely used in ministerial training. There are almost no books focusing solely on this topic and this dearth also affects those who preach at the Ascension - a major feast day that concludes the Easter season - and also at the Feast of Christ the King which concludes the Christian year and which has a central focus on the Ascension. After more than twenty years of teaching ordinands and readers in training, Moira Astin provides a comprehensive and readable book that also covers the required academic ground for those in training. In straightforward language, it considers: - the Ascension in the gospels - in Paul's letters and in Hebrews and Revelation - its heavenly and earthly meanings - theological understandings over the centuries - why the Ascension matters today - its importance for understanding other key doctrines such as the incarnation and resurrection.

Popular author and illustrator Gregory Cameron offers 31 daily prayers from the treasury of Christian spirituality through the centuries. The prayers included some from some giants of the faith - St Augustine, Patrick, St Benedict, Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, Clare - and also lesser known figures right up to recent times who nevertheless left a legacy of prayer that continues to nourish faith and practice today. For all readers there will be something familiar to treasure and plenty that will be new to discover. Following the pattern of An Advent Book of Days and An Easter Book of Days, each daily section includes an original icon-style illustration, a prayer, the story that lies behind it and a reflection on its significance in history and for faith today.

The Bible is a book of stories par excellence and is completely realistic about human nature. Hero, Lover, Daughter, Queen retells ten timeless biblical stories of archetypal figures, enabling readers to see themselves and help them make sense of their lives, including: Solomon - how to create your legacy The lover in the Song of Songs - what makes you beautiful? Goliath - what makes you strong? The paralytic man - finding true friendship Jezebel - what it's like to be thrown to the dogs Paul - understanding human sexuality and more. In their stories we are offered a mirror. By gazing into it and learning from their experiences we are offered a way forward in our own lives. These characters were real people who, like us, grappled with the reality of the human condition. Even when they 'called on the Lord 'and reached beyond themselves for understanding, they did so from within the messy confines of lives like ours. For that reason we can turn to them and find genuine insights and wisdom that and can help us in our own times.

Great Sacred Music, a free lunchtime concert of church music for choirs and congregations, is a regular feature of the life at witness of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Once a month, a themed programme is offered which, in addition to the music, includes stories of how the music and hymns came to be written and some reflections on the theme. As well as a celebration of music, it has proved to be instrumental in the mission of St Martin's attracting many people to the church. Great Sacred Music offers 52 complete and ready-to-use choral music-themed programmes for occasional celebrations in local churches, or as an alternative to evensong. All the sheet music chosen is available from the RSCM, or recordings can be downloaded from YouTube for churches which do not have choirs. Scripts for introducing the theme and stories about the music are included. Choral music is one of the great treasures of the Anglican tradition. Great Sacred Music will support the missional work of the church in drawing in people who would not ordinarily attend a service, but who enjoy its rich musical heritage.

The season of Advent traditionally involved meditation upon the 'Four Last Things' heaven, hell, death, and judgement, encouraging Christians to evaluate their lives through the prism of endings. In a time of permacrisis - environmental degradation; disinformation and the rise of populism; widening economic inequality and deep racial divisions, The Love That Moves the Sun revives this ancient practice and marries it with contemporary concerns, recovering the hope and belief that all things are moving towards union with God. Contemplating our final ends gives hope and direction in a chaotic world of uncertainty. The first advent began with an angelic messenger announcing the coming of Christ to Mary. The Love That Moves the Sun enables us to hear annunciations in our own time, calling us to the salvation of a groaning creation and the hope of a new earth where justice dwells.

Poetry, prayers, art and scripture meditations come together to create a reflective guide for personal and corporate devotion on the events at the heart of the Christian story from a contemporary, urban perspective. Focusing the death and resurrection of Christ, this is suitable for year-round use as an alternative form of the Stations of the Cross, but also with a special significance for Holy Week and Easter. Arranged in 14 sections, reflections by Joanne Grenfell and sonnets by Adam Atkinson explore discipleship in today's world, touching on contemporary themes such as identity, truth telling, violence, abuse, racism, and belonging in relation to being a follower of Jesus. Each is powerfully illustrated with original paintings by artist Ali Mulroy. The prayers are written in the first person as a devotional response to all that has gone before and each opens with a line from a fresh rendering of the Lenten Prose. The book springs from a series of talks given at St Paul's Cathedral in Holy Week 2023.

Mapping your spiritual journey is a technique used in spiritual direction, on retreats and pastoral work, as a way of recognising and interpreting God's presence in the highs and lows of your life experiences. This book offers creative ways to explore your own spiritual journey, helping you to trace your relationship with God from the beginning, whether looking at your entire life or exploring significant moments. It can be done in multiple creative ways - drawing, collages, timelines, maps, collections of objects or photographs, modelling, journaling, making a garden and more. It offers suggestions for ways to reflect on your journey by looking at parallels in the narratives of the Bible and in everyday life and to learn from these how to deepen your understanding of God's presence and actions in your life. This equips you to look forward and plan your future journey with God with confidence.

Poetry has always been a central element of Christian spirituality and is used in worship, in pastoral services and guided meditation. In Sounding the Seasons, Cambridge poet and priest Malcolm Guite transforms seventy lectionary readings into lucid, inspiring poems, for use in regular worship, seasonal services, meditative reading or on retreat. This second edition includes further sonnets for the Christian year written since the original edition, including a sequence of 19 sonnets on the resurrection appearances recorded in scripture. Immediate, striking, simple yet profound, Malcolm Guite's poetry resonates deeply and widely across the churches of all traditions throughout the English speaking world.

Many are familiar with the Orthodox 'Jesus prayer', but there is much more to discover about its tradition of contemplation as a grounding both for the interior spiritual life, and for compassionate action in the world. The author, an Anglican Franciscan friar and theologian, reflects on the wealth of Orthodox spirituality through the teachings of its key figures and texts: - Evagrius of Pontus (345 - 399) One of the first Orthodox theologians and desert father. - John of Sinai (c. 579 - 649) Abbot and writer of the highly influential The Ladder of Divine Ascent. - Isaac of Syria (7th century) A much-loved hermit - Maximos the Confessor (580 - 662) A philosopher, theologian, martyr and teacher. - Symeon the New Theologian (949 - 1022) A monastic reformer, with deep mystical experiences of God's radiant light. - Gregory Palamas (1296 - 1359) A theologian, monk, and teacher of practice of silent prayer. The aim is to enable readers to gain a sense of connection with the saints of Eastern Christianity as spiritual guides for today.

Women over the age of 40 are by far the biggest and the most active demographic in the Church of England. A huge proportion of any given congregation will likely have experienced menopause and yet it is almost entirely taboo as a topic of conversation in churches. Writing with refreshing frankness, Jayne Manfredi uses biblical reflection, prophetic storytelling and prayer to journey with those experiencing "the dreaded m word". Facing the taboo head-on and by turns hilarious and moving, Waking the Women offers a challenge to destigmatize women's experiences by opening up the conversation around midlife and ageing in churches and other faith spaces.

This is a book about the present and future of the church in our present challenging context; a secular age, decline, stretched resources, complex and fragmented communities requiring diverse missional approaches. Weaving together parable, storytelling, travelogue history and poetry, Paul Bradbury journeys from rural Norfolk to inner-city London, from a radical missional community in Lincolnshire, to a traditional village parish in Dorset, to explore what the church looks like today, and how local parish communities are wrestling with the tensions between the value of inherited church, and the need to look to the future.

Jane Austen - novelist, forthright letter writer, daughter and sister of Anglican clergy - had a rarely-matched insight into human character. Like Lent itself, she exposes frailty, caprice and pomposity without losing a profound and compassionate understanding of human nature. Her life was profoundly shaped by the church and Christian spirituality, making her writings an ideal accompaniment for the 40 days of Lent.Rachel Mann introduces Jane Austen, her world and her ideas, and, for each day of Lent, offers commentary on a short excerpt from her writing to explore how her faith can illuminate ours. She brings Jane's novels into conversation with biblical and spiritual ideas and also with today's questions about class, sexuality and race.Themes explored include: The Triumph of Love, Learning Wisdom, Seeing Beyond the Surface to the Truth, Knowing Where Your Treasure Lies, The Temptation to be Prideful and Prejudiced, The Pomposity of Religion, Privilege and its Limitations, Duty and Good Manners, and much more.

In fifty pithy and engaging daily reflections from Ash Wednesday to Easter and beyond, Rob Marshall leads us on a pilgrim journey to the Mountain of the Transfiguration.The story of Jesus displaying the overwhelming glory of God to three chosen disciples is one of the most potent yet mysterious stories in the gospels, and a prelude to all that will occur in Jerusalem. Popular broadcaster Rob Marshall explores the many layers of the Transfiguration and relates them to ordinary human experiences - journeying, prayer, revelation, tiredness, sleep, fear, doubt, waiting, questioning, listening, suffering, vision and much more. Mountaintop encounters with the divine are transformative, but like the disciples we are not meant to stay there. Instead, we return to the realities of daily life, changed forever by glimpsing the glory of the God. Transfiguration will help you take the power of divine revelation into your ordinary daily Christian life.

The back page column of the Church Times, famously occupied for many years by Ronald Blythe, continues to be a breath of fresh air in the hands of poet and priest Malcolm Guite. His acute observations of the local, the everyday, moments of conversation and life's simple pleasures are doorways into a bigger reality of a world suffused with the meaning and beauty that lies beneath surface appearances. His lucid, perceptive and imaginative musings follow a similar pattern to the sonnets for which he is so renowned. In his own words, he treats these 500 word essays 'a little in the spirit of the sonnet, with a sense of development, of a 'turn' or volta part way through, and a sense that the end revisits and re-reads the opening'.These draw together everyday events and encounters, landscape, journeys, poetry, stories, memory and a sense of the sacred, and fuses them to create richly satisfying portraits of the familiar that at the same time opens the way to an enchanted world.

See the Biblical story in an unusual light - from the perspective of a devil who took up arms against heaven under the leadership of Satan. With eternity to ponder why God emerged triumphant from the struggle, this rebel angel has turned to the Bible, the record of God's dealings with 'the humans' to find out why his side was defeated.In twelve chapters, he considers a dozen of God's significant encounters with humanity - each take placing on a mountain top. From Mount Ararat where Noah's ark pitched up, to the Mount of Ascension where Jesus returns to heaven, each reveals an aspect of God's inexplicable and unfathomable love for humans. Beneath their conversational and sardonic surface style, these infernal reflections engage deeply with the reality of a loving God who is made visible and vulnerable in Christ. The Infernal Word began as a series of addresses preached on Good Friday in Canterbury Cathedral. They make ideal seasonal reading for anyone who wishes to explore the story of salvation - although perhaps not if you are a devil.

January 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Fresh Expressions movement which spread internationally and denominationally from its origins in the Church of England. Graham Cray was its first National Leader. Countless new forms of church have emerged through Fresh Expressions, the Church Army, New Wine, and various pioneer network. On Mission with Jesus offers a theological understanding of the missional nature of the church, which will undergird and inform local practice and assist ministerial and pioneer training. Its central argument is that the Church's inherited understanding of itself imprisons the imagination of local congregations and in ten chapters, Graham Cray seeks to establish a new self-understanding for local congregations: 1. Updating Default Settings 2. Sharing in the Mission of God3. Making Disciples 4. Following the Spirit5. Shaping the Church 6. Anticipating the Future7. Joining the family Business 8. Being a Pilgrim People9. Recognising Jesus in the Church 10. Becoming a Jesus on Mission-Shaped Church

This new poetry collection from Scottish poet Kenneth Steven captures small moments of revelation or epiphanies, which come unexpectedly as gifts amid the ordinary. An uncleared breakfast table, the sight of someone working outdoors, an old photograph, and the features and sounds of the Scottish landscapes that so inspire his work, all become, in the poet's words, portals to a greater reality: 'the small moments that make up the whole story. This is the sudden going through the door into the bigger world.' Many of them are written in the sonnet form, whose brevity and economy of expression mirror the essence of this book, and whose very form turns from the ordinary to the extraordinary in a moment.

The world's most famous hymn book has undergone a complete revision and now offers the broadest ever range of traditional hymns and the best from today's composers and hymn/song writers. 150 years since its first publication and after sales of 170 million copies, this brand new edition contains over 840 items, ranging from the Psalms to John Bell, Bernadette Farrell and Stuart Townend. The guiding principles behind this collection are: - congregational singability - biblical and theological richness - musical excellence - liturgical versatility - relevance to today's worship styles and to today's concerns New features include added provision for all the seasons of the Church year, new items for carol services and other popular occasions where the repertoire is in need of refreshing, more choices for all-age worship, fresh translations of some ancient hymnody, beautiful new tunes, short songs and chants - alleluias, kyries, blessings etc. and music from the world church. A full range of indexes (including biblical and thematic) and a helpful guide to choosing hymns for every occasion will help to make Ancient & Modern the premier hymn collection of choice. This is the Large Print Words edition.

In The Vanishing Song, trans Christian poet Jay Hulme goes in search of what is all but lost in contemporary faith, the 'beautiful and holy and wild' way of the saints, and the alluring, perplexing mystery of the places they chose for themselves - forests, caves, rocky outcrops in the sea. Revelling in the untamed nature of creation and the holiness that is to be found there, these poems celebrate and summon the spirit of those who did unhinged things for God, in order that we might recover a sense of uncontrollable wonder and the danger of the divine as well as its beauty. The Vanishing Song is a call of the wild to faith that is adventurous and unafraid.

As one of today's outstanding preachers, Samuel Wells understands the importance of proclamation in the life of the church and in the public sphere. In this practical and inspiration manual, he considers the essentials of preaching in a wide range of contexts:Preaching on the Times: preaching about politics, the planet, economics, justice and truth;Preaching on the Seasons: preaching at Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Harvest and All Saints;Preaching Texts: preaching on Old Testament Narratives, on Old Testament Poetry on the Gospels, on the Parables, and on Paul;Preaching Contexts: preaching at baptisms, weddings, funerals, after a tragedy, and preaching at short notice without a text.Each section considers styles of preaching, what the occasion demands, practical advice for preparing, two sample sermons and a list of dos and don'ts.

Confident and capable leaders recognise what has shaped them. They have an understanding of their past, and are continually learning from the life journeys of themselves and others. They are fully engaged in the present, and have a positive, open and realistic mindset towards the future. Shaping Your Future Leadership will help you understand what has shaped you as a leader and how to best develop your next phase of leadership.Its seven focused sections consider how we are:· Shaped by family, schooling and background· Formed by life choices· Moulded by responsibilities· Fired by leading others· Influenced by our emotions· Energized by what we find as lifegiving· Guided as we look to the futureShaping Your Future Leadership will help you draw from the past in order to move decisively into the future.

Christmas and Easter, Advent and Lent, each focus on the central beliefs of Christian faith - that in the Incarnation, God comes among us, and that in the Resurrection, death is defeated and creation is renewed. In this collection of seasonal reflections, Samuel Wells unpacks the substance of these key Christian doctrines, and explores their practical implications for living as Christians in the world:- Laid in a Manger: Reflections on the Nativity - The Word was Made Flesh: Reflections on Christmas - The Image of the Invisible God: Reflections on the Incarnation - Early on the First Day of the Week: Reflections on Easter Morning - I have Seen the Lord: Reflections on the Risen Christ An ideal resource for leading seasonal services or preaching at key festivals, this collection will keep giving from Advent Sunday to Easter Day.

Evangelism is a contentious word, conjuring up all sorts of assumptions. It can create suspicion or imply tribalism, or can be seen as a desperate response to falling numbers. For some the term has become irredeemably polluted. But what if we recovered an authentic understanding of evangelism as good news that enables people to know that they are drenched in the love and grace of God? And how do we do that? This is a book for everyone who wants to share the gospel but who cannot relate to what evangelism has become. Its title is taken from Saint-Exupery, 'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.' Drawing on writers like Bonhoeffer, Newbigin and Pope Francis' landmark Euangelii Gaudium, Chris Russell aims to redeem evangelism from its present predicament. He sets it in a deeper and richer theological context, asks how the church and individual Christians can communicate the love of God in language and action, and explores how the good news is received.

With pressure on budgets and soaring energy costs, this small book will be worth its weight in gold to every local church. It offers expert advice that will equip non-professionals to make informed decisions on making their church buildings more sustainable, understand sustainability technologies, help navigate changing permission processes and thus save time and money - and serve the Anglican mark of mission to care for creation. Nigel Walter demystifies the topic of sustainability and provides a wealth of practical advice and quick-wins. He includes guidance on: - developing a plan that suits your church; - improving your maintenance practices; - alternative ways to heat your church; - where and how to get professional help ; - navigating the new permission processes. A helpful appendix lists numerous sources of further advice and guidance. Comprehensive in scope, authoritative in content, practical in outlook and written in lively, accessible language, no church should be without a copy of this essential guide.

All disciples of Jesus Christ are called to care for one another whether they have a formal role or not, and exercise pastoral care by listening, encouraging, comforting, offering practical help, praying. In times of crisis and in everyday life, good pastoral care people feel known and loved by God, and valued in the church.This short, yet comprehensive guide lays a biblical foundation for good pastoral care, offers a theological approach to understanding people, considers the particular needs of the sick, children and families, and those in difficult circumstances, and outlines the boundaries within which all can be safe. Throughout, examples and questions for reflection will deepen understanding and enrich practice.

The Nazareth Community, based at London's St Martin in the Fields, is a contemplative community patterned on monastic life for people from all walks of life. Its rule has seven guiding spiritual principles: Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sharing, Sabbath Time and Staying. Founded by Richard Carter in 2018, it now draws members from across the country and from overseas. Letters are a classic genre of spiritual writing and Richard has written a monthly spiritual letter to the Community since its inception. Collected here, his letters aim to encourage readers to live out a simple rule of life, to reflect, pray and live with compassion despite the challenges of modern life. Rich in biblical reflection, poetic meditation and practical guidance for living in demanding times, Letters from Nazareth abounds in simple yet profound wisdom for our world today.

The Eucharist is common Sunday fare in most Anglican churches, and the point in ritual where God and humanity most closely meet. It nourishes the soul, deepens and extends community, reaches deeper than any other Christian practice. But collective worship has been in steep decline and Eucharistic practice has been further disrupted by the pandemic.In The Eucharist in Four Dimensions, Jessica Martin considers the place of the Eucharist today using four approaches:· The Point of the Eucharist - its essence, story and what it is for in contemporary culture; the divine value it gives to the weak and the broken;· Flat Eucharist - the meaning of the Eucharist in a world of written liturgy and screened worship;· The Eucharist as event - the role of physical gathering and communal eating in the Eucharistic drama of communal feast; how this works when we are physically absent;· The Eucharist in time - how memory brings together Jesus's past physical present with the meetings and partings of our own lives.This is an essential guide to the Eucharist for all ministering in a world of streamed services and remote worship.

Church Beyond Walls tells inspiring, informative and occasionally funny stories of how a group of people took Christian spirituality outside of church buildings to engage a world increasingly uninterested in religion, God and faith. From imaginative and wide-ranging experiments, it draws out principles to inspire local churches to express their faith in their communities, and it shares liturgical and other resources developed for these occasions. Based in Brighton and known as BEYOND, for over ten years this group of dreamers, artists and provocateurs have experimented with public art, created light shows and walking meditations, partnered with retailers to create spiritual shop window trails, celebrated the festivals of the church in secular spaces, used folk traditions and more to introduce people to the Christian faith. Their goal and the aim of this book is to help local churches create opportunities for epiphanies: moments when the divine can break into human experience.