Mark Tiddy’s Blog & Website - Thoughts of a Christian Youth Worker & Musician

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Ok, for some reason at this ‘I really should be in bed’ hour of the night I’m thinking about future, as the end of my Gap Year approachs things have happened I didn’t think would and I can see parts of the future yet others remain unknown.

So the near future…. in 5 weeks ish I finish in Peterborough for the summer, during which I’m hoping I will be working at Haven again getting the pennies in, Spending loads of time with friends, playing music and trying some recording again, and getting some rest with a KD, Ben & Me camping trip somewhere along the lines and a chance to spend some time at my home church with God without the pressures of youth work every week, which, don’t get me wrong I love youth work but a break is good! Of course other plan in mind is a Youth Service at the end of the summer with a much smaller and certainly not called what it used to be called Cheesed Off. I think the whole jokey name thing was very Sixth Form, what with bigfatsmellychicken, cheesed off and numerous locker-tampon jokes. It’s time to move on and it’s amazing how being away for a year changes you, God has provided me with confidence this year and been helping to develop and use my skills for his work.

The not quite so near future… so, after the summer? Well come September I will be starting a difficult but hopefully rewarding three years, the first two I will be at Park Rod Baptist in Peterborough doing youth work and going to London 2 days a week to do a degree in Christian youth work, this 48 hour week to be perfectly honest scares the hell out of me! It’s not that I don’t like the idea of work but I think that after a Gap Year (which no hasn’t been easy and free) getting back into study patterns could be trickey. The third year leads us nicely onto…

The ‘Damn that’s a long way away’ future… the third year of uni seems a long way away and I haven’t figured out if the lack of placement means there will be more work or just an easy time, I guess this will influence whether I stay in Yarmouth and commute or find somewhere to live nearer, who knows? And when that’s all over I guess it’s into youth work, unless of course I’m in a signed punk band touring the globe, which would be amazing and my dream but I guess it’s probably unlikely, who knows!

Thinking about the future is slightly scary really, it’s weird when you’re at college actually getting a proper job, house etc seems ages away but it seems pretty close now and it’s kinda scary.

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So today on my browsing of the world wide web today I came across this rather informative news article on the BBC: Click to view This article informs the world about a shocking attempted robbery where the article of a news agent was forced to fend off a axe-bearing robber with a box of chocolates!!!

The BBC Makes me laugh sometimes, as in this case does the robber, what kind of idiot is frightened off by chocolates? Lol!

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For starters some background information, Audacious is a ‘Rock-style’ church movement in the UK, from what I can gather it only started a few years ago. They do all sorts of events including a summer conferance.

So what is the reasoning behind my blogging?

Well, having heard quite a lot about this Church, and been to a ‘recording-of-an-album’ event I’m skeptical to say the least, I think once again, much like Proclaimers it’s perhaps slightly down to style however some of their wording on their website is slightly sketchy and worries me.

For starters on the page relating to the Audacious Conference 2006 the opening sentance is

‘Here you will find all the info you need to make the best decision of the year - “to join the Audacious revolution”‘

Now an audacious revolution? Now a revolution is a relatively sudden or dramatic change (thanks to google for definition), now the way I see Christianity is that God is the same yesterday, today and forever and the message of the Church doesn’t need to change because God doesn’t, so an Audacious revolution is certainly one thing we do not need, we do however need revival (bringing again into activity and prominence), so revival is what the Church needs not revolution because scriptually nothing is changing, nor is anything changing in our actions as Christians, we will still worship God, Pray to Him and preach the gospel, no change or revolution there!

The next part from their home page is this:

The pages of church history were written by Audacious young people who weren’t prepared to settle for the status quo. They stepped out in faith, trusting in God for a new day.

ok, so Audacious people are Fearlessly, often recklessly daring, I don’t have a problem with that, and yes I guess people like Paul in the NT were young, however this quote from Audacious church is quite obviously talking to teenagers (other parts of the website say ”August 2005 saw thousands of UK school pupils, teenagers, and young adults‘ so we know who they’re aiming at) , so perhaps they’re slightly off there. Yes Paul (to use him as an example) was Audacious (to use the ‘In’ word!), and he did indeed step out in faith but not necessarily trusting in God for a new day but worshipping God, and doing as he commanded us through Jesus Christ. To go back to the ‘not being prepared to settle for the status quo’, I don’t believe that that is what the early Christians were about, it wasn’t about not settling for the normal, saying this misses the point completely! Both early Christians and todays Christians are about sharing the good news of the gospel to the world, it’s not cause we don’t like the norm but because Jesus came so we can have something so much better. Audacious church, you have missed the point!

Now I am no-one to judge a church and write it off completely, however having also heard songs that don’t even meantion Jesus, let alone reference him, being used as worship makes me question the theology behind the church. I wouldn’t say that it isn’t a church and I certainly wouldn’t say that they are not bringing young people to Christ, however I think it is too much about them, it’s too ‘Look at us we’re the audacious church look what we do’ and Church isn’t about that, Church doesn’t need all that to get noticed, the glory of God and the light of Christ alone is what we need an ‘Audacious Revolution’ claiming to ‘Shape youth culture’ worries me, I believe it’s Jesus Christ who shapes all Christians through his Holy Spirit, Romans 12:2 says ‘…Fix your eyes on God, you’ll be changed from the inside out’ not ‘Fix your eyes on God and the audacious church will change you’ God alone changes hearts and re-shapes lives for him, not an Audacious Revolution.

Rant over!

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Well firstly, Angels and Airwaves last night, I’m still buzzing they were amazing, Tom could sing really well and they did covers of There Is (Boxcar Racer) and Down (Blink 182), I managed to taste sweat in the mosh pit (yuck) but I did get some recording which you can find by going to www.standforchrist.co.uk/ava

Tom even made a joke he said ‘I got a secret, I did it with a girl….and a women…and I didn’t cry…the second time’, yay for Tom Delonge in the music industry (Mr Foster if you make a negative comment about AVA I will remove it!!!)

On a related note I have a few thoughts on the second verse of ‘A Little’s Enough’ by Angels and Airwaves which Tom describes as a song being about God coming down to fix the earth. The verse is…

Green trees were the first sign
The deepest blue, the clearest sky
The silence came with the brightest eyes
And turned water into wine
The children ran to see
The parents stood in disbelief
And those who knew braced for the ride
The earth itself then came alive to say

For starters this verse is obviously talking about none other than Jesus, the lines that really got me tho were ‘The parents stood in disbelief and those who knew braced for the ride’, for some reason, although I knew it before this song really hit home with me and I realised how exciting it must have been to have been one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, saying ‘Those who knew braced for the ride’ really made me realise how much of an amazing ride being around Jesus must have been, not knowing what would happen next, not knowing what amazing miricles he would do or what piece of wisdom he would give. Jesus rules!

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ok, so normally I think of something that ‘Grinds my gears’ and go on a ramble about it and this evening is no different, here bloggers is my blog on the joys of ‘Echoed/Chanted Prayer’.

I grew up going to a C of E church, everyweek we’d be given these tatty green cards which contained the whole service order, prayer of confession, and other chanty boring kinda stuff. Yes, I know that this is how some churches are but it doesn’t work for me, for me a relationship with God is something awesome, something powerful and most importantly something personal, when I pray to God I want what I say to be from my heart, I want to tell God exactly how I feel whether it’s apologising for me being a muppet, praising him or just having a ramble to God from my heart, God created the entire world, and loves everyone but still finds the time to speak personally to little old me here in Peterborough doing youth work and I want to make my relationship with him equally as personal, sitting in church saying ”Heavenly father I confess that I have sinned against you and against my fellow man in thought and word and deed, through neglegance, through weakness, through my own deliberate thought and I am truly sorry for my sin’ etc etc, and so on and so forth (I can remember that yet haven’t said it for about 7 years!) means nothing to me, I say it merely because it’s in front of me not because I mean it, when I screw up I want to say something personal to God because it’s my relationship with him and it’s not the same for everyone.

So what about the Lords prayer I hear you (and myself) cry! Well, Jesus said ‘This is how you should pray’ and yes I think if you mean the prayer when you say it it’s good to use however I’d take it as more of a demonstration on what we should include in our prayers so we should say sorry and thank you and it would be nice to have etc etc.

Anyway ramble over!

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ok, so here is blog 1 of 2 from me today, this, the first is slightly light, I have been informed that I need to blog about Laura not quite sure why (see comments to previous blog) so lets start with a picture
So, in this first picture (Laura on the right) we can see her love for spoons, she has been known to travel to various cities and even countries just to find spoons and the rare and rather sophisticated sport of ‘Spoon Licking’ is one which she takes to like a duck to water and she has become rather good at this sport and is planning to enter the world championships, when someone starts them!

Which leads us onto the next side of laura…nope, not a strange dress sense but her spare time job, in her spare time she puts on her orange overalls and becomes one of Charlie’s angels, traveling the world at light speed just to help out people in peril (and blind them with the overalls!) but this isn’t the only thing she does in her spare time, oh no! Another one of Laura’s rather aquired tastes is the sport of….

Yes, indoor skiing is a sport which Laura has become quite good at, putting both her skill and imagination to the test, this physically and mentally draining sport is a great way for Laura to keep fit, she tries to do this at least once a week when no-one is looking but occasionally gets caught by the camera crew set up to catch people who participate in this, once thought extinct but in actual fact underground sport.

So this concludes the laura tour I hope you have found it informative and exciting and that you now feel settled and furfilled now you know all about Laura!

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I’m in need of blogging and this is all I could find! (btw foot was hayleys!)

5 days until Angels and Airwaves live!

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ok, so a couple of things to blog on this time, however I promise it will be considerably shorter than the last blog firstly because I can’t be bothered to type that much again and secondly for Laura who’s brain really can’t handle long posts!!!

So firstly, as promised a blog on the ‘Hillsong UNITED’ Rock Churches, after the Audacious concert I really got thinking about these churches, they seem to be appearing everywhere and attracting loads of young people…so where’s the problem? Maybe it’s me being sceptical but when I see people jumping ‘Rock Gigs’ comes to mind, I am well aware that music can influence us, for example a bit of Ska makes everyone smile and rock gets people into the mood for jumping, personally I don’t find that jumping works for me when I worship God, perhaps it works for others but my worry is that when a Church is based upon very jumpy music is that whether people are there for God or the music. I don’t doubt that some people have become Christians through these churches but at the same time I wonder how many are going just for the music, though I guess perhaps this isn’t a bad thing, they must get the message too from the preacher. I don’t know really, I guess it’s one of those unanswerable questions that could lead into a ramble so I’ll stop!

My Second Promised Feature…is this!
Yes! Sunday was the Local Area Group Careforce meet up and although only 5 of us (including Becky who works for Careforce) it was a pretty fun day, after me managing to get lost in Leicester I made it to the church we were meeting at eventually, after church we went to the Park for a picnic then onto peddle boats! Yay! We finished off the day praying in a chinese-style garden, over all a fun day!

So blog readers, I leave you with a puzzle…who’s foot is this?
All will be revealed…next blog!

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