Blog

  • The Silliest Thing I’ve Read about Scottish Independence

    We are, of course, currently living through the run up to a vote to determine whether Scotland will remain within the United Kingdom or breakaway to form a new country. I’ve just read the silliest and most foolish thing that I’ve ever read about Independence, published this morning in the Huffington Post. Love America and…

  • The Questions about Uganda

    Just before Christmas, the Primus of our church visited Uganda. Since there have been a number of comments made on his blog justifying the trip in terms of it being important to deal with those who have different views. I’ve not heard anyone question the idea of a Primus dealing with those of different views.…

  • Can you help me out here?

    I’ve been asked quite a few times this week for help. However I need you to help me out first before I can decide what to say or do. The thing is, people keep saying to me that they want to learn how to do the online thing better in a church context. After I…

  • Aaron Swartz

    Can I suggest you head over to Akma’s blog to read his post about the death of Aaron Swartz. It is moving and thoughtful and expresses more eloquently than I can how I feel about this death. Most people won’t know Aaron’s name. However we all get the benefit of his work. As Akma says,…

  • What people are looking for

    The following search terms have all brought people to my blog in the last month: Lucy Winkett married (I’ve no idea) friendship as sacrament (if only the churches were this wise) Old St Paul’s homosexuality (A number of searches on this one suggesting that people are not finding what they are looking for from their…

  • Should churches use e-mail? Or indeed blogging?

    Yesterday’s post about the internet and what we can learn from the demise of HMV didn’t raise that many comments but it certainly did the rounds, being more shared on Facebook than anything that I’ve written in months. It was picked up as a conversation topic by the Anglican Church of Canada’s The Conversation too.…

  • 8 Things the Churches Could Learn From the collapse of HMV

    I’m sad to see that the HMV music chain is in trouble. The sadness that I feel about it though has to be accompanied with a knowledge that I’ve looked elsewhere for my entertainment recently. At one time I would have gone there to buy things for others and things for myself around Christmas. This…

  • Sermon preached for St Mungo – 13 January 2013

    I have to confess that for most of my life I did not give St Mungo much of passing thought. I certainly encountered him when I was in primary school up the road in that I remember a wonderful Primary 5 teacher in Bearsden making us do a project on the great urban conurbation that…

  • Sermon preached for the Epiphany 2013

    Here’s the sermon I preached for the Epiphany. My day was made when a member of the congregation came up to me at the end beaming. He introduced himself to me as a member of the Iranian Community of Glasgow and said: “We, we Iranians were the first to worship the Baby Jesus!” And they…

  • Here’s to you, Bishop Robinson

    The Church of England is in full brouhaha mode today over gay bishops once again. Before saying anything about that, I think it is important to give a shout out to the Rt Rev Gene Robinson who is retiring today as Bishop of New Hampshire. It was obvious when he was elected and consecrated that…