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

At the risk of people reading this and thinking it’s liberal I want to say that it’s not…I’ve been reading Phillip Yancey’s Book ‘What’s so amazing about grace?’ and he talks about showing grace and love to people and finding the line between ‘why can’t we all just get along’ and the ‘turn or burn’ approach.

Jo sent me an extract from a service sheet at CRB church in Sheffield where I was sunday morning. The actual article was taken from thesheepdip.co.uk but it had some good points which I am going to briefly explore!

Firstly it pointed out that Christians are all too good at complaining and telling everyone that they’re wrong and I agree…in fact read my blog for examples! Christians seem pretty good at letting everyone know when they think that something is wrong i.e. harry potter, homosexuality etc. In fact, Christians seem to be good at showing hate (just read the ‘hate mail’ from christians on xxxchurch.com) but how often do we do something positive?
This extract from the service sheet suggested that this halloween instead of pretending we’re not in to trick or treaters why not use it as a way to share about Jesus? The leaflet suggested explaining to the children that we don’t celebrate the darkness but the light and that being Jesus, they also suggested this quite corny (but perhaps effective) idea;

- Buy some Christian goodies! - Go down to your local Christian book shop and get some pencils, rubbers etc with Christian slogans and give those away

Personally I like the idea above, I also like the idea of explaining how we represent the light, I think in a world where Christians seem to be good at saying the wrong thing I think we need to stop saying that things are wrong but find a way to show Christ’s light through it.

By all means Christians should do alternative events and whatnot, but why not find a way to explain Jesus to the trick or treaters? Giving them something even though you don’t agree might be a good way of showing Christ’s love, it might provide an opportunity to talk about Jesus and perhaps it’s far more likely to be what Jesus did…I very much doubt Jesus would have gone out with a load of flyers telling us we’re going to hell if it’s celebrated!

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Hello readers!
I bring you what is (I believe) the first ever tarkmiddy blog blog from South Yorkshire aka Sheffield (it might not be South Yorkshire, I might be wrong!), but either way it’s a blog from a strange land.

Whilst Jo works at ASDA and I procrastinate over this essay which I’m meant to be writing. I need to write about some youthwork that I’ve done…I can’t think of any!!!

I got a bit confused last week when I saw a pot of galaxy hot chocolate with a NESTLE logo on…are Mars owned by Nestle? does that in turn mean Masterfoods are? I’m confused! (Helsalata, if you read this perhaps you can answer!)

I’m currently listening to a band called ‘Dakona’, they’re a Christian rock band who are a cross between The Calling and Nickelback. It’s one of those CD’s I bought cos it was about £2 in a Christian book shop and found that it became one of the best buys ever!

I’m gonna stop blogging and try and do an essay, I have some fun fridge magnet word blogs to post soon so keep checking (if you don’t have a clue what I mean check the blog again soon!)

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In Sainbury’s Great Yarmouth yesterday I was impressed to see ‘Dubble’ Bars alongside the mars bars and cadbury bars at the end of the aisle by the checkout, for those who don’t know what a Dubble is it’s a very good fairtrade chocolate bar!

And to the left is a picture! Check the end bar!

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Yes today, in the middle of Peterborough I saw a very rare occurance…a postman…actually doing work opposed to standing around!

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This BBC News Article gives an update on the trial of Geraint Evans who murdered Father Bennett in Wales earlier this year, however despite the murder being planned because of mental health issues Evans is only down for manslauter but will be locked up indefinately in an asylum.

I don’t know that I’m annoyed by the result, more curious at how it ended up as manslaughter.

However the thing that really gets me thinking is that Evans was a Satanist, he visited santanic websites, was members of some and generally seems to have had an unhealthy interest, he is said to have claimed that he was satan.

I wonder if this is a reminder of the under-stated power of the devil, it seems quite rare to hear him meantioned in church and do we push him aside a bit? Yes it’s just as unhealthy to take too much interest but I wonder how many Christians actually forget the reality of satan.

The other thing I wonder is that should society be more open to spiritual battles? Yes Evans was diagnosed with a mental disorder, however is this sort of thing Satan’s cover-up? I honestly don’t know but I wonder.

There are loads of things that can’t be explained whether it’s ghosts, miricles in Churches or people who appear to be demonically possessed but we always seem to look for some kind of logical answer rather than perhaps thinking about the possibility of them being reality.

Just some thoughts…

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The bishop of Canterbury has been in the news twice today (BBC News website) and he isn’t talking rubbish…somethings up!

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I’ve just found out that this december there’s gonna be a chipmunks movie…how cool is that?! Alivin, Simon…Theodore!

Check the trailer here

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The man on the left is a guy called Serj Tankian, he was the singer of System Of A Down and is now releasing a solo project, from what I’ve heard it’s really good, a lot like System Of A Down’s early stuff just better produced. Have a listen www.myspace.com/serjtankian

Secondly just thought I’d state that I’m loving worship leading at the moment, we had a youth band practice last night which was really good.

Thirdly (hence the ’something else’ in the title), I finished reading Rob Bell’s ‘Velvet Elvis’ (book), a couple of weeks ago, it’s really good and I’d recommend it, as with all Christian books take it with a pinch of salt, some of his theology I didn’t quite agree with but it was an interesting and challenging book. I’m currently reading Yaney’s book on Grace. (I think I mentioned velvet elvis on a previous blog!)

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Here’s an extract from a BBC News Article on the Postal Strikes

The CWU’s David Ward described Royal Mail’s work practices as like “slavery”, which the company’s boss Adam Crozier said was “cobblers”.

Surely he could have come up with a better statement than ‘Cobblers’!

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A few months back I did a post titled ‘A perfect church’, however the more I think about the phrase the more I disagree with it, the more I’m in church, the more band practices I go to, the more sermons I hear, the more people I speak to the more I come to this conclusion…

We don’t need, nor should we want a perfect church

In fact….(please read on after this before thinking I’m wrong) I think we need an ‘imperfect church’.

The fact is the church is made up of imperfect human beings. Imperfect human beings with imperfect lives, some with more than others, some with more visible imperfections than others but never-the-less imperfect people.

I think too often churches have the mentality that their church has got to be perfect. It has to be the best worship with no wrong notes, the best sermon with a challenging message, the best response with a flock of people running down to the front ready to be prayed for and be filled with the Holy Spirit but I disagree…

yes, worship that sounds good is nice, worship with no wrong notes is good, it’s great to have a cracking sermon, even better when you do a sermon to have a flock of people down the front and awesome to see God working however that’s not what we’re called to do, I think whenever we lead worship at church, play an instrument, sing, preach or whatever we shouldn’t try and be perfect, we should come before God with our imperfections, do our very best and let Him do the rest.

I remember one sunday at Park Baptist in Yarmouth we went along, came to do a song and the laptop with the words crashed…disasterous, no-one knew lyrics or anything so what did we do? stop the service until it was fixed? Do the song anyway and let people complain? Nope, we did a completely unrehersed song everyone knew the words to and the worship experience was awesome because we didn’t let an imperfection get in our way, we just got on with what we were called to do and that is worship God.

I’ve been in music practices where a song is repeated over and over again because one note is wrong, or slightly out of time and yes I understand that we should do our very best for God, especially when leading worship but some of the times I’ve felt closest to God have been during completely out of time worship.

I’m not saying we need to strive to be crap but that sometimes we need to accept that we aren’t perfect and that it is only in Christ we are made perfect. We also need to accept that God doesn’t want perfect worship, he wants hearts focused on Him, he doesn’t care if we’re off key, out of tune or singing the wrong verse, it’s about bring our imperfect worship before God and letting him make it perfect.

The same applies for the rest of the church we need to stop trying to be perfect on our own and just do our very best before God and let Him continue to make us closer to being perfect through Jesus Christ.

I leave you with these few times of worship I’ve experienced….

1 - A field, on a cold afternoon, it was Soul Survivor and 4 of us, myself and 3 young people sat there singing worship songs at random, some of them we made up keys for, others we were just completely out of tune…it was still worship, I believe it glorified God just as much as Tim Hughes’ led worship does.

2- Letton Hall - It was the night before young people arrived, there were five of us there, with 2 guitars and no music we did some worship, we were all out of tune but it led to a powerful hour or so of prayer….it was still worship, I believe it glorified God just as much as the latest hillsong album does.

My point is that it doesn’t matter how imperfect our worship is as long as we aim to glorify God by giving our all, God doesn’t say ‘you’re out of key get out my presence’.

And finally where does this leave the church?
It leaves the church exactly where it was 2000 years ago, a group of people united by the Grace of Jesus Christ coming to learn more about God, coming to worship Him, coming to meet with Him. It’s still a group of broken people, a group of people who know they cannot do life on their own, a group of people who know the saving Grace of Jesus, a group of people who should realise that they’re not perfect and that it is through Jesus they can be made perfect, and all they have to do is ‘act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God’ (Micah 6:8).

To come back to my original statement, perhaps we shouldn’t want an imperfect church, but perhaps we should stop trying to perfect it on our own and let Jesus do it

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Two quick updates…

1- The ‘My Photos’ Link is now linked to a brand new Google Picasa Web Album instead of photobucket, there’s a few new photos so have a look!

2- I have added the new Angels & Airwaves song ‘Everything’s Magic’ to the mp3 player, it’s really growing on me since I first heard it so have a listen.

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I hoovered the inside of my car, topped up water and checked my air pressures, it’s so lovely and clean inside now! YAY!

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These last couple of days I’ve been reading in the METRO about the new trial into Princess Diana’s death which happened 10 years ago. It seems to me that ten years after a death is a silly time to start a trial, plus I think it’s obvious that a car crash killed her.

I guess the thing that puzzle’s me the most through this trial seems to be very much about working out conspiricy theories…was Diana pregnant? Were blood samples at the crash switched? was the driver part of M16? Did someone pay to have her killed? The thing that gets me with all of these theories is it just seems like people clutching at straws because they don’t want to believe it was an accident.

The fact is every year lots of people are killed on the roads in accidents, some when speeding others when not and they don’t get a trial, this whole thing seems like a big waste of money, then again that’s almost my opinion of the royal family but I’m not gonna start on that one!

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