Feb 13, 2025 | QPUpdate, The Way of Jesus
There have been any number of viruses knocking many of us for six this winter. Nevertheless, one abiding infection continues to make Western societies sick. It is a condition named by psychologist Oliver James as “Affluenza”. He diagnoses the affluenza virus as: “The...
Feb 6, 2025 | QPUpdate, The Way of Jesus
Nowhere does following Jesus feel more counter-cultural than when it comes to sexual ethics. In a hook-up, casual-sex culture Jesus holds up an ethic of intimacy which protects and honours faithful, committed relationships between a husband and wife. It is an ethic...
Jan 29, 2025 | QPUpdate, The Way of Jesus
Electricity and I have not always been the best of friends. I have, mainly through my own stupidity, given myself several electrical shocks. One which stands out in my memory – yes there is more than one – was when I set up my brother’s keyboard at church. The plug...
Jan 23, 2025 | News, The Way of Jesus
“Polarisation” is a word that is coming to define our age. Social media algorithms, we are told, double down on our prejudices, and ramp up our reactions. Civility, debate and humanity have left us, and outrage anger and aggression appear to have become virtues. Even...
Jan 16, 2025 | QPUpdate, The Way of Jesus
As religious practice appears to freefall in the UK, interest in Jesus and Christianity is on the rise. Take Russell Brand’s 2024 baptism for instance and his meandering reflections on faith amongst his many online followers. To my point, Brand recently joined forces...
Nov 21, 2024 | QPUpdate, Strengthening the Heart of the Fellowship
Find my Past Many of us these days are fascinated by our family history. I did a bit of digging in my father’s paternal line and found the Sprotts hailed from Blantyre. George Sprott, a retired miner, constructed a row of tenements called ‘Sprott’s Buildings’ to house...
Nov 14, 2024 | QPUpdate, Strengthening the Heart of the Fellowship
So, I missed you last weekend. To come clean, I was indulging in a personal obsession. I was enjoying a long-planned dad-and-daughter weekend in the west of France for the start of the 10th “Vendee Globe” single-handed, round-the-world yacht race. Our obsession with...
Nov 7, 2024 | QPUpdate, Strengthening the Heart of the Fellowship
My alarm goes off. It is Wednesday morning, and some strange alchemy has happened overnight. When I went to bed our duvet was made of cotton and a light fibre fill, but the temperature difference between under the duvet and outside the duvet has transformed the cotton...
Oct 31, 2024 | QPUpdate, Strengthening the Heart of the Fellowship
“Hinba” is Scotland’s very own spiritual Atlantis. Saint Columba, stressed out with the buzz and busyness that was monastic life on Iona would take himself off to the sacred isle of Hinba, there to commune with the Lord. Did I mention this often meant standing...
Oct 24, 2024 | QPUpdate, Strengthening the Heart of the Fellowship
Many of you will have, I’m sure, visited the town on Oban either to enjoy wandering around the town or to catch a ferry to an island. As you go around the town you might notice, as you look up at some of the older buildings, brown staining, weeping down the façade or...
