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

I’m feeling nice so enjoy a new playlist on the mp3 player

Sorry for the lack of proper blogs but I’ve been busy being out and about (and watching lots of Family Guy )

It’s set for today or tomorrow for Saddam Hussain to be hung and I can’t help but think he’d be slightly more use alive than dead, I also can’t help but think that so far America have done more harm than good in Iraq by their actions, I’m sure Bush could be found guilty for the same crimes that Saddam has been! (Bush, a Christian? my arse!)

It’s quite surreal too because capital punishment is rarely talked about and very rarely practiced in our society and for there to be such a huge public coverage on it is quite surreal, I guess it’s kinda sad that we havn’t moved on from such things!

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On the mp3 player, enjoy!

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I dreamt that when you buy a duck it comes in two parts a neck and the rest and you have to put the two bits together (like joining straws) then they should come to life, if they don’t you have to give them CPR… I worry about myself sometimes (luckily I wasn’t giving the CPR!!!)

Couple of Christmas songs now on the playlist of the mp3 player so listen!

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I’m wrapping Christmas presents with Eminem on…

rapping to rapping! hehe (simple things please me!)

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A post on Santa - but first… another thing to support my view on veils

In case you havn’t guessed from the above link today I’m on the Daily Express, I bought one this morning having had a toenail removed and a couple of things stood out, the second was this article

Link (I couldn’t find it on the Expres website so it’s a Daily Mail link and I’m very sorry for that!)

So, for those who couldn’t face the daily mail website the general story is that a teacher gave out some worksheets to her year 5’s saying that every year the Post Office responds to thousands of letters to Santa and they had to write a letter as if they were writing it as the post office to a child which sounds like a good exercise to me, however some of the kids then questioned why the post office needed to respond and santa couldn’t and the teacher said he didn’t exist reducing some of the kids to tears, one parent said ‘I can’t believe they would teach this, it has taken the magic out of Christmas’.

Naturally I put on my Christian hat here and think that Santa is not what’s magic about Christmas, and I think as I seem to become an old scrooge I see the idea of Santa as a bad one, yes, Saint Nick was a good guy and it’s worth remembering what he did and perhaps he is in heaven but it’s insane to believe he is still alive and it distracts kids from God, they get more excited about seeing Santa and stockings than the Nativity story.

I think the other huge issue I have with it is the concept of lying to your kids and deceiving them, the bible says lying is wrong (hehe the song in the background atm is ‘Lies’ by Billy Talent), and I think it’s completely wrong for parents to be lying and deceiving their kids and I don’t think it’s something I’ll do when I’m a parent, I believe God calls us to be honest, and I don’t think I go with the Santa thing, they should be more excited about Jesus, he’s way better than some old guy who goes into small children’s rooms! (There’s a creepy concept!!!)

(btw this wasn’t pondering 2)

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As Christmas fast approaches I thought I’d produce a series of thoughts and reflections and indeed challenges on the Christmas story for you blog readers…

Mark’s First Pondering…

What do you think of when someone says Christmas? Do you immediately think of your chocolate advent calender, the santa coke adverts or maybe even a nice cosy Nativity scene, if you thought the last you are at least close to the point, however the nice cosy image we picture at Christmas is far from it!

The nice warm looking stable would have been a damp smelly cave, not the place the son of God should have been born (or rather where he was expected to be born), Mary would have just faced 9 very difficult months, she was pregant without being married, in those days that would have been a huge problem to society, she was also probably only about 15 years old (if not younger), but Mary stuck by God through all of it, when Gold told her she was going to have a baby she trusted him and believed Him even though she didn’t know how it would work because she hadn’t had sex. She trusted God that this wouldn’t cause Joseph to leave and she celebrated what God had done in her (See Luke 1: 46-56). So in the next few days, until my second pondering appears just think if this applies in your life.

Can you trust God for the impossible? Do you trust God no matter what happens? Would you be willing to risk anything for God?

Mark

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I figured it was time for another Top 5 and this time it’s albums, so here we go! (This was so difficult to do)

5 - Boxcar Racer - [Self Titled]
Trying to find a least favourite top album was pretty difficult, there’s so many CD’s that could go here and like this entire list it could be completely different were I to do it in a weeks time. Boxcar Racer was a side project for Tom Delonge and Travis Barker after the Blink album ‘Take off your pants and jacket’, it shows us a first sign of Mr Delonge being serious and the experimental, heavy style of the album works. The whole album other than the weird instrumental is great!

4 - MxPx - Panic

This was one of those albums I was slightly hesitant about buying, the only song I’d heard was ok but nowhere near as good as anything from Before everything and after but it turns out the album was such a good buy. It shows MxPx taking a much heavier approach to music than the last few years and it’s an amazing album, feating songs with old band friend Mark Hoppus (Blink 182, Plus 44) and is an absolutely amazing album!

3 - Bowling for soup - a hangover you don’t deserve
The unofficial album of college, I remember several evenings driving back from Norwich with Ben, this on full blast and Ben singing along so hard his voice hurt, what an album and as Bowling for soup have proven with their new album very difficult to follow up, by far one of the best punk rock albums around!

2 - Jack’s Mannequin - Everything in transit
This is probably the only album I own which for the first few months of having it has actually travelled between car and house everyday because I couldn’t bare not to have it to listen. Jack’s Mannequin is a side project of Something Corporate and is very much piano based with some rock guitar, almost like a lighter something corporate or for you Christians out there like Relient K’s lighter stuff. The whole album is amazing!

1 - Blink 182 - [Self Titled]
I think this is the album that most real blink fans are almost meant to hate or at least dislike because it is so different from where they started and so experimental and of course no longer the immature side of Tom, Mark and Travis coming through but a serious meaningful side, and for fans looking back now they can see how the style influenced Tom’s new band Angels and Airwaves however I think musically this album is amazing, the lyrics are awesome and the drumming is unbelievable. So this has to be my top album!

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Ok, for those who don’t go to a baptist church baptists have a thing they call church membership which basically means you sign up to be a member of the church, a bit like when you were little and you joined the Beano club but without the goodies but with the addition of being able to vote and sit through hours of dull meetings (if you’re thinking this is quite sarcastic/offensive so far I’m afraid the blog will carry on in this style).

So before I continue what has been for a while my curiousity around baptist church membership (mainly whether it’s biblical or not), I shall explore bible verses used by baptists to justify it, and refer to the BU a lot which is the Baptist Union of Great Britain and probably quote them a few time. I will include links at the bottom.

Firstly I will explain my own personal issues with membership then explore the bible and what the baptists have to say before concluding. My initial thoughts on it are that I tend to disagree with it, not because I have a problem with people being involved in making church decissions but I have a problem with the church being exclusive, I think everyone should be open to help make decissions not just people who’ve signed a bit of paper, every voice in the church should be heard regardless. My other issue is that I’ve heard it said that the logical baptist move is to get baptised and become a member, I’ve even heard it said that a person shouldn’t be baptised if they didn’t want to become a member and that a minister may have refused to do a dunk if the persons un-intent at becoming a member was noted before. Which I personally feel is a bit ridiculous and something I disagree with.

I think the church as a whole whether it’s baptists, anglicans etc should be about unity, Jesus tried to bring everyone together, the first christians were an odd bunch, tax collectors mixed with fishermen but I think that’s what Jesus aimed for, and yes Christians today are still like that but the churches almost seem to have a barrier against each other (not all churches just some) because of a few simple beliefs, which is one reason I do not call myself a baptist or a anglican or a methodist, not because I want to be separated from denominations but because I want to be united with them, because my soul aim is to follow Jesus.

Now onto the bible and baptists!

However helpfully the BU website fails to meantion any biblical justification for church membership, the only meantion of members is when it talks about people who go to Baptist churches and I have no idea whether it means literal members or merely people who go regually.

Some extracts from their website to help understand membership if by members they mean members:

For Baptists the concept of a family is important. The church is not so much a particular place or building, but rather a family of believers, committed to Christ, to one another and to the service of God in the world.

Individual Church Member
For Baptists, Christian faith begins with a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. This personal commitment, dramatised in a service of believer’s baptism, works itself out in a life of service to God. Currently there are some 150,000 members of Baptist churches associated with the Baptist Union of Great Britain.

From this I’m not sure I get much really, certainly nothing biblical or any clear meantion of membership which might actually send my blog on membership down the pan, however as I was beginning to give up I found this on the BU website

In other Christian traditions, church membership is not always clearly defined. In a Baptist context, baptism involves not only commitment to Christ, but also commitment to Christ’s Church. For Baptists, church membership involves a commitment not only to work together to extend Christ’s Kingdom, but also to love one another and stand by one another whatever the cost.

So, church membership shows a commitment to Christ’s Church which to be honest I don’t have a problem with, however I think when it means being almost tied to one church, im not sure it fulfills it’s principals but God does call us to a church or at least help put us in a church where we will grow spiritually as a Christian (I hope).

Biblical Bases - I’m afraid this blog isn’t quite working as planned, no bible verses about membership on the BU, however the part I’ve heard quoted the most to back up church membership is this bit from Acts 2:

41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

The Fellowship of the Believers

42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Now I’m not generally one to disagree with the bible and in this case I don’t, the way I’d read it would be that many were added to the church in general, at the time that would have probably been one of only a few churches (if even a few) and Acts (written by Luke) follows the early church, and the way I see it many were added to the early church, I can see how some people would argue that added might mean that they joined/ signed up but I think it’s perhaps more a way of saying that lots of people were saved.

Conclusion

To conclude a blog having got no where always seems a shame to me and I don’t feel that I’ve got very far, I can see where they come from, I still don’t agree yet in the same way I respect confirmation yet don’t agree with it I will leave it be. I think as a youth worker it’s almost natural to believe in including everyone and no cliques and I guess to an extent that’s where my views on this agree but at the same time I believe in unity of the church as a whole regardless of denomination, we all believe in one father, son and Holy Spirit so why don’t we do more together?

Resources used: Baptist Union Website: http://www.baptist.org.uk/

Please post anything you’ve heard or views as a comment I’m still curious about all this!

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Things that annoy me about Christians!!!

It was so hard to narrow this down to five but here we go! (I’m joking)

1 -The way the tiniest pathetic thing bothers Christians about church i.e. ‘That piano is an inch away from where it used to be’, ‘There’s a drum stick on the floor, you’ll offend God’

2 - Pipe Organs - ‘Praise God on the pipe organ’ - PSalm 150? Nope it meantions everything but including clashing cymbals (’But we can’t have loud drums in our church, they’re devil’s music’), I don’t think I however, can biblically justify destroying all pipe organs in churchs, however they sound awful and play hymns out of date by about 100 years with lyrics no one understands!

3 - The ‘Let’s all be nice and tip-toe’ mentality - Why do Christians think they should tip toe around being nice and not really sticking up for what they believe? I wouldn’t say that Jesus was a nice guy who tip toed around, I’d say he let all hell break loose (excuse the pun), he trod on lot’s of Jewish toes etc etc.

4 - The ‘Can’t have that in case the church get’s damaged’ - For goodness sake, the church is not a building it’s a group of people, and if a window get’s broke because a youth group happens then so what, it’s better that it happens than it doesn’t!

5 - The overly apathetic and overly charasmatic ones - The ones who either don’t believe God will do anything ‘but the doctors will’ and the ones who insist something is healed when it’s not ‘You’re arm is healed, it just looks different to it used to, and God has decided to bless you by it not working properly’

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Why does most Christmas music suck?

It’s either boring hymns with old language (or bad modern translations) which bore the hell out of me or cheesy commercialised crap such as slade ‘here it is merry Christmas’.

Yes, there is punk Christmas but it’s not that good either, only decent Christmas music I’ve found is Relient K or Matt Thiesan and the earthquakes which are great new quieter Christmas songs which are actually relevant!

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Welcome to the new and improved Hi, My name is Mark! - Blog

Now it really is blog without the boring bits, in fact there’s so much hype you’d almost forget it was a blog, there’s an mp3 player with a selection of tracks to influence your mood and some pretty colours and fun links to lighten your day, oh my I really do have blogging taken to a new level!

Hi, My name is Mark Blog - Blog without the boring bits!

“I look around at all these other blogs in Norwich and they’re dying’

(Things stated in this post are very tongue-in-cheek you either get the joke or you don’t)

A final quote:

‘I got asked to judge ‘Mr Gay UK’, I said ‘Ok, he’s against nature, he’s against God and he’s going to hell’ - Jimmy Carr

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Ok, So today I flick onto the Norwich YFC Forum and this is a post

‘I fell over today, during my break at work, i’d gone for a walk down a country lane. I slipped on some leaves and landed heavily on my side. I ended up unable to move. I called my mum and consequently spent a few hours in A and E. Luckily i’m just bruised and sore.

I as disgusted and upset at the response i got. Picture this.

I’m sitting on a wet country road in a leafy muddy puddle, sobbing my heart out, in agony. You walk/cycle/drive past. would you stop and help me? or at least ask if i was ok?

Not one person did. A lady walked past - it’s a fairly narrow lane so i was unmissable. she looked at me, looked away and kept going.
More than 10 cars drove past, in all of them someone looked at me, but they kept going. some cyclists ignored me too (and one lorry driver and 2 people on motorbikes)’

Taken from Norwich YFC Forum - Link

Reading this reminded me of a song we had at primary school which went ‘would you walk by on the otherside’ and of course talks about the parable of the good samaritan.

This post reminded me of that too but it also reminded me of something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and that is that we very much live in a very individual, closed society, a society where you could walk for miles and not be spoken to by a single person.

I think one thing that has surprised me since beginning the commuting lifestyle twice a week is that businessmen get on the same train every day of the year, sit in the same place, near the same people yet never speak to anyone. People on a busy tube station get annoyed because they have to wait a minute for the next train.

I think the point that this post says to us and indeed something I think God has been teaching me about recently is the importance of helping others, Jesus spent his entire ministry helping others, teaching us to help the least and encouraging his disciples to help others yet so often, as is the case in the story of the good samaritan it’s the person you most expect to help who just walks on by.

As Christians I think our biggest challenge is to help others regardless of who they are, regardless of how low our street cred (if you’re lucky enough to have any) goes because of it. As I travel through London I feel God challenging me to look out for people who need help, whether it’s people with pushchairs who might struggle with tube station stairs or people who look generally lost. It’s so easy to slip into society and just be plugged into our mp3 players and not watch the world around, to just walk on not caring when Jesus teaches the exact opposite.

As Christians we need to break down social boundaries, we need to help people regardless of whoever they are, one example of this, and a huge learning point for me happened over october half term. I was with Caroline and we saw a chav on the floor by the community centre by her house who didn’t look so good, when we got back from the pub he was still there but with 2 friends so we went to see if he was alright, turns out he was drunk and hadn’t got up (or been properly conscious) for 2 hours so we helped get his mum down, helped him into the car etc.

And that, for me was a learning curve because although I try not to get swept along with society the whole anti-chav thing seems to be everywhere, and I’m thinking that perhaps as Christians we shouldn’t conform to this, we should treat everyone equally whether they’re a drunk chav or a tatooed goth!

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Hello friends of my myspace

I felt like posting a bulletin so here’s my current life update!

This week has been mad, went down to london tuesday night with steven, crashed at Mark’s then off to uni bright and early on wednesday, after a day of lectures it was time to…

Head to the studio! Yay recording is so much fun, we’ve got 14 tracks down and I did some vocals finally finishing recording at 5am, back to Mark’s by 6 for an hours sleep then uni again!

After another day of lectures if was off to the venue for our gig, we set up, sound checked, watched other bands and then did our gig, including a spontaneous song ‘My phone is broken’

Was so much fun, finally got back to peterborough at 2am friday having had no sleep for 40 hours but one hell of an amount of red bull and pro plus! Rock On!!!

Ooh and if Heathcliffe aren’t your myspace friend add them (my band)
www.myspace.com/heathcliffeband

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One day Jesus’ secretary came into his office and said, “Sir, you should take some time off from all of your work. Get out and meet your people here. Have a good time.” Jesus thought a moment and decided to do just that. So he saved all his work on his Super Computer, shut it down, and went outside. He had a great time as he walked down the golden streets, shaking hands and signing autographs, but along the way He heard the sound of rip, saw, rip, saw, and noticed sawdust coming from a window of a little shop on a side street. He walked down to the shop and went inside. There He found a bearded carpenter working so hard he was sweating, and the drops of perspiration were running down his face, and mixing with the sawdust. In his rich melodious voice, Jesus said, “Sir, why are you laboring so hard? You should rest and enjoy yourself.” The old man said to Jesus, “Oh, no, please let me continue. You see, I had a son on Earth whose birth was a miracle. My son knew I was a carpenter, and my eyesight being what it is, I thought if he heard me working he would ‘find’ me.” Jesus stared at the man, and his eyes started to mist. The man stared at Jesus, quizzically. Jesus said, “Father……..?” The old man said,……..”Pinocchio?”

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