Seeking Justice Introduction Dear Friends, I hope you enjoyed Neil Thorogood’s reflections over the last week informed by art, scripture and faith. We turn now to a new series. The Joint Public Issues Team (JPIT) is part of the Baptist Union, Methodist Church and United Reformed Churches. It works and prays in, and with, those denominations […]
URC Daily Devotion for Saturday 16 May 2026 Scripture and Faith 6
Reflection It wasn’t unusual for the refectory of a convent or monastery to be adorned with a depiction of Christ eating with his disciples. But the one created for the Dominican nuns at Santa Caterina di Cafaggio in Florence was unique. Theirs was created by a self-taught nun. Which makes it the first known large-scale […]
URC Daily Devotion for Friday, 15 May 2026 Scripture and Faith, 5
Reflection Amy Lyon was often controlled and abused by powerful men. A housemaid at 12, Amy became an actor, model and dancer in London. Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, followed by the Honourable Charles Francis Greville, took Amy as a mistress, the latter getting her to change her name to “Mrs Emma Hart.” Greville was everything but […]
A Prayer for Ascension Day
A Prayer for Ascension The Lord goes up with shouts of joy (Psalm 47:5) Dear Friends, Sarah Hall wrote this prayer for Sunday’s digital service which focuses on the Ascension which falls today. We hope you find it useful God, greater than all our ideas of you, we praise you.We know of kings and presidents, […]
URC Daily Devotion for Wednesday, 13 May 2026 Scripture and Faith 3
Reflection We are in the Book of Judges, chapter 12. “The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, ‘Let me cross over,’ the men of Gilead asked him, ‘Are you an Ephraimite?’ If he replied, ‘No,’ they said, ‘All right, say “Shibboleth”. If he said, […]
URC Daily Devotion Tuesday, 12 May 2026 Scripture and Faith 2
Reflection 2015 was the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta (the ‘Great Charter’), King John’s response to rebellion. It recognised that neither monarch nor government were above the law and introduced concepts around individual freedoms that have remained central in the laws of many nations. It is a text that has shaped history. The British Library, […]
URC Daily Devotion for Monday, 11 May 2026 Art, Scripture and Faith 1
Monday, 11 May 2026 Art, Scripture and Faith 1 Brick House by Simone Leigh (2019) Reflection Standing 16 feet tall, Leigh’s bronze bust of a black woman was the first sculpture for the High Line Plinth in New York, a public park created from a redundant elevated railway. The city had very few monuments […]
Scripture, Art, and Faith
Scripture, Faith, and Art Dear Friends, I hope you found our journey through the book of Judges with Janet Tollington interesting. Janet’s love of the Old Testament is something she willingly shares with us and we’re grateful for the time and effort she put into producing that series. For the next week we are going […]
URC Daily Devotion Saturday 9th May 2026
Judges 21:2-7, 8b, 10-14, 17-25 And the people came to Bethel, and sat there until evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. They said, ‘O Lord, the God of Israel, why has it come to pass that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel?’ On the next day, […]
URC Daily Devotion Friday 8th May 2026
Judges 20:1, 3b-13, 18-21, 26-27a, 28b, 35-36a, 47-48 Then all the Israelites came out, from Dan to Beer-sheba, including the land of Gilead, and the congregation assembled in one body before the Lord at Mizpah…(Now the Benjaminites heard that the people of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) And the Israelites said, ‘Tell us, how […]