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?...
Jan 11, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
We Evangelical Christians have an aversion to repetition. We prefer our prayers to be “extemporised” and spontaneous not written or repeated. On the other hand, our sung worship is endued with more sacredness when repeated! Of course, there are good reasons to be...
Jan 4, 2024 | QPUpdate, Vital breath - living in the Lord’s prayer
Happy New Year! I wonder what your aims are for 2024. Perhaps, drop a few pounds? Learn a new skill? Stay out of trouble? Pete Grieg recently posted about the pastor and author of “The Message” Eugene Peterson’s aim for life. His life ambition, according to his...
Dec 21, 2023 | QPUpdate, The Thrill of Hope
Easter, as we all know, moves about …the date on which Good Friday – Easter Sunday changes year on year. But, Christmas – to state the obvious – is always on the same date! You would think that given we all know when Christmas is we’d be better prepared, it would feel...
Dec 14, 2023 | QPUpdate, The Thrill of Hope
What are you hoping for this Christmas? Our theme of ‘hope over fear’ has been explored through the multi-layered book of Revelation, and then built upon last week through Iain’s message about ‘a great light’ (Isaiah 9… Matthew 4:16) – we believe this great light is...
Dec 7, 2023 | QPUpdate, The Thrill of Hope
“Hope springs eternal in the human heart” claimed Alexander Pope in his poem “An Essay on Man”. These days that spring looks pretty worn and wound down. “Resilience”, that much-vaunted quality we are all encouraged to develop in the face of life’s headwinds and...
Nov 30, 2023 | Hope Over Fear, QPUpdate
Congratulations! You will, by this Sunday, have made it to the end of the book of Revelation as we consider the final chapter of the book, chapter 22. September 10th, when we started this series on Revelation seems a long time ago and we’ve covered a lot of ground...
Nov 23, 2023 | Hope Over Fear, QPUpdate
The future struck me forcibly in a coffee shop in Pollokshields eighteen months ago. It happened when my very clever university friend was regaling me with his early-retirement PhD project. Artificial intelligence, he said, is accelerating at such a pace that we will...
Nov 9, 2023 | Hope Over Fear, QPUpdate
All the Light We Cannot See is the latest Netflix binge-watch chez Macaulay. It’s a beautifully rendered series based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Anthony Doerr and my cultural recommendation of the week! It tells the story of a blind French girl and a German...
