Mar 14, 2024 | QPUpdate, Questions of Life
When I was in my late teens one of the youth leaders rather than buy a fancy car bought a minibus. It meant that after youth club on a Friday night a bunch of us could pile into the minibus and head to someone’s house to hang out. It was on these Friday nights, which...
Mar 7, 2024 | QPUpdate, Questions of Life
Of first importance Tom Holland’s magisterial volume Dominion demonstrates the profound influence of Christianity on Western civilisation, and has the sub-title, ‘The Making of the Western Mind’. The very first page of the first chapter describes the extreme horror...
Feb 29, 2024 | QPUpdate, Questions of Life
Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, and even Vladimir Putin command the headlines in 2024. Yet, I am convinced, their celebrity and status will wane. Few names survive the test of time. Yet the influence of Jesus of Nazareth is increasing globally after 2000 years. Arguably...
Feb 22, 2024 | Global Focus, QPUpdate
Worldwide, one in seven believers in Jesus face persecution. That’s 365 million people according to mission agency Open Doors, who compile an annual “world watch” list. Top of the list of persecutors are N Korea, Somalia and Libya. However, Nigeria is 6th and Pakistan...
Feb 15, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
It struck me the other day that I am no longer asked a question I remember frequently being asked as a teenager and young adult. The ubiquity of mobile phones means that I cannot remember the last time someone asked me “do you have the time?”, a very Glaswegian way of...
Feb 8, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
“Revenge is a dish best served cold”. And the colder, the more calculating and hurtful it is, the more appealing it is to my enraged soul. This vicious spiral of harm-generating-harm makes the world spin from injury to injustice and from grievance and bitterness to...
Feb 1, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
After the joy and excitement of the baptism last Sunday, the week, we return to the joy and excitement of the Lord’s Prayer as our sermon topic. While part of the purpose of the blog is to look ahead to Sunday, it is worth noting a couple of things (a fraction of QPBC...
Jan 25, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
The biopic is making a comeback. The superhero franchise is on the wane and biographical films of ordinary heroes and villains and all their human shortcomings are in the ascendency. My nominations for best picture are as follows: Oppenheimer, One Life, She Said and...
Jan 18, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
I’m writing this on Wednesday and the acute angle of the wintery sun is bathing the red sandstone of Niddrie Square in a wonderful light. It is, in my opinion, on clear wintery days like this that Glasgow looks at its best. But Did you sense there was a but coming?...
