Care Scotland

Spending time with my friend @theoweir at @carescot has been a breath of fresh air in recent months. Stuart heads up the Scottish arm of Care, based in Glasgow.

In working with these guys, I have had my eyes opened to the valuable difference being made in parliament by Christians who want to influence our society and culture by tackling some of the huge issues that we pray and care about.

Check this video out:

Hipsters & Homelessness

Despite its regular usage nowadays, the term Hipster is apparently way more difficult to define than the frequent use of the sub-cultural word might suggest. Check out the etymology and historical sojourn of the term here:

Living in Edinburgh’s New Town district as a wannabe Hipster myself, (in that I’m not trying to be a Hipster or trying to look like one especially, but I suspect I might have stylistic leanings that way), I am spoilt for choice for expensive barbers and stylists where I can go to go grab a hair cut and a beard trim complete with beard oils and double shots of single malt whisky. Really. My birthday-treat hair cut at Ruffians last month was amazing: “cup of tea or coffee, sir…or a whisky?” …. Nick’s slightly disinterested, dismissive facial gives way to a wide-eyed expression of “yes, please!”. Continue reading “Hipsters & Homelessness”

Find Me In The River

The final gig in God’s Great Dance Floor UK Tour kicked off last night in Edinburgh. It was beautiful, it was memorable, it was powerful, it was intimate and probably, for that reason, the best gig I’ve ever been to. Here’s a more intimate moment. Continue reading “Find Me In The River”

Into the Barn to Burn (sermon)

From Plato to Heraclitus to Paul to the Holy Spirit

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Plato’s problem is that there isn’t enough stimuli in the world around us to reinforce the knowledge-based convictions we have in our heads; we don’t experience what we know. But Heraclitus would have said 100 years before that it doesn’t matter because everything is changing constantly anyway – you can’t step into the same river twice because before your second foot touches the water the river has moved on. The river changes.

And so is our knowledge-application-gap getting smaller or is it getting bigger as we continue to ‘know’ and struggle, (if we’re all honest), to experience? Are we changing and becoming more as our knowledge tells us we should be? Specifically, are we changing to progressively experience the power of the Holy Spirit that we see in the Bible?

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God’s Green Room Introduction: Habitat Loss

INTRODUCTION

– Habitat Loss –

The reddy-brown Orangutan and her little baby drifted through the air, suspended in a
metal cage. Their beautiful faces flecked with warm, bright sunlight through small air-holes
as they swung together in the sky beneath the helicopter that carried them like a tired
pendulum. The great apes were en-route to the jungle of Borneo to be released back into the
wild to be given a fighting chance of returning to their lofty world of tree-top canopies.Continue reading “God’s Green Room Introduction: Habitat Loss”

Fight as Though For Yourself

A friend loves at all times,
    and a brother is born for adversity.

 – Proverbs 17:17 –

The bible says this is what friends do and that this is what brothers are born for.

Q) Is this your experience? A) Probably not…at least, probably not entirely.

It’s more likely that you have been hurt by your friends, vice versa, and that you have shirked the risk of taking responsibility of the adversity of a brother (or sister, obviously). Continue reading “Fight as Though For Yourself”