The reputation of the Netherlands as being a country with many Christian denominations has been boosted by the publication of a new reference book detailing churches. The authors have tallied a list of 648 churches, congregations and meetings, making the Netherlands the country with the second-largest number of Christian denominations and religious movements in the world, after the United States. ...

The Columbia Press RRP $39.95 Published in 2007 in Dublin, Liturgical Resources for the Year of Matthew is written for the Roman Catholic Lectionary which often differs from our Revised Common Lectionary. It is also to be noted that it relates only to Ordinary Sundays in the cycle so, from a Protestant preacher’s point of view, is somewhat frustrating to ...

Easter message from Rev Dr David Pitman Moderator of the Queensland Synod Mark 16:8 says of the women who found the tomb empty on Easter Day: “they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Many biblical scholars agree that this was the original ...

Chocolate is a luxury that adds to our waistline and often makes us feel guilty. Yet if people knew about the exploitation and dangers kids in the cocoa fields are forced to endure, chocolate would also make them feel sick. It is estimated that in the West African nation of the Ivory Coast alone more than 600,000 children work on ...

Upper Room Books Approx. $25 Daniel Benedict, until recently served as director of worship for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church in the USA. He is one of that church’s foremost liturgical scholars, writers and practitioners, with a strong interest in areas such as discipleship and the catechumenate; not to mention being an all round good ...

Queensland Uniting Church Minister Rev Ellis Bramley who is now 96 years old and still worships every Sunday at Chermside-Kedron Community Church will celebrate 70 years of ordination 28th February. Ordained in 1938 Mr Bramely is still in remarkably good health, and looking forward to this milestone.  The Chermside-Kedron congregation is celebrating his anniversary as the focus of morning worship ...

Churches should be prepared to confront their differences honestly and to examine them in the light of the scriptures, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I has said at a service to celebrate 60 years since the World Council of Churches was founded with its goal of Christian unity. "The bonds of friendship between divided churches and the bridges to overcome our divisions ...

Rev. Dr Alan and Mrs Judy Morrison spent a year in Tonga from July 2006 to July 2007. Here are Mrs Morrison’s reflections on their time there. The hour was late but the airport was alive with people – men, women and children moving, talking, laughing, looking – and everywhere the handshakes and hugs of meeting and greeting. Our pale ...

South African police have raided Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church arresting as many as 1500 homeless people there, many of them thought to be Zimbabweans, leading to strong protests from the local bishop. Bishop Paul Verryn has played a key role in the care of refugees and asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe at the church. He said he was angered at what he ...

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, hopes that by the middle of the 21st century Christians will have reached a level of unity so that they can share Holy Communion together. Kobia said this in a front page interview published in the official Vatican daily newspaper l’Osservatore Romano dated 25 January, the day ...