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

I’ve blogged on this before and no doubt it’ll happen again, but I’m continuously bothered by the attitude we seem to promote towards alcohol in this country.

A news article a few months ago reported that it is cheaper in supermarkets to buy lager than to buy water.

University’s up and down the country continuously offer drinks for around 80p a pint or alcopops on buy one get one free.

People I know on facebook seem to often have screenames about hangovers, never drinking again or generally about being drunk.

All of this continues to make me think that by lowering the prices of drink, by encouraging things like ‘pub golf’ (a concept where you get more points the more you drink) and by generally sending the message out that to have a good night out you need to be drunk we are giving out completely the wrong impression.

I blog this not to boast but to make a point, I have never been out and got drunk, I’ll go out and drink but I get to a point and stop because I don’t need to get drunk to have a good time, I like being in control and I like being able to choose what I do rather than letting alcohol choose that.

To bring this onto a Christian basis I think that getting drunk is biblically a bad idea, in a couple of his letters Paul condemns it, Proverbs, Isaiah and Hosea also suggest in various places it’s a bad idea.

To me Christians seem to always have a struggle to show the world that 1- we’re not boring and irrelevant and 2- we are in the world but not of the world’ and the way I see it being a Christian, going out, having a good time and not getting drunk is a really simple way we can show the world that Christianity is just as much fun and that you don’t need to drink fun.

It only takes a few to change the world (as the disciples prooved) and I wonder if every Christian who read this made the decision not to get drunk and then challenged their other Christian friends not to whether we could turn this stupid attitude to alcohol around. I’m not saying don’t drink, I’m saying enjoy it, and glorify God at all times and in my opinion that means not getting drunk.

Just some thoughts for you….I needed a rant!

On a final unrelated thought I think it’s about time the press left poor Britney Spears alone, maybe she wouldn’t be breaking down if they didn’t put so much pressure and stress on her!

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Regular readers will know how much I like xxxchurch.com, well yesterday in the metro the section which is usually about some kind of kinky sex tips etc.  there was actually an article about an ex-escort who found God and now goes to convert prostitutes, sex workers etc…

Read the article…you all should

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does this look like ben or is it just me?

(Left: Henry from Ugly Betty, Right: Ben)

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You may remember a while ago I posted on the ‘just do it effect’ (link). Now the issue I had (you may remember) was that the goverment were pretty much promoting the ‘want sex? go for it just ‘rubber up”, however today whilst at my community placement I was talking to a youth worker who has just done the ‘condom distribution training’ with Peterborough Council, and as part of this they are being encouraged to encourage young people to delay having sex.

This basically means their trying to talk to young people about waiting, about committed relationships and about other ways of sharing intimacy in a relationship without having sex. I spent lunchtime reading through all this and found it really encouraging, although it’s still giving out condoms if the young people are going to have sex (which I don’t really have a problem with…means they’re safe which is perhaps the best result of a unideal situation) it puts more emphasis on waiting, and commitment and addresses the issues like peer pressure, wanting to feel loved etc which often lead to young people having sex.

Of course the smug part of me thinks that finally people are beginning to realise that the way Christians tend to promote is the best way…God is right after all. However the rest of me is absolutely amazed and really positively encouraged by this new ‘delay method’ coming in…I’m so amazed and happy I have blogged on it!

Potentially I guess this leads onto my blog on marriage which I’ll try and do sometime this week!

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A Snail is faster than royal mail - link

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Things I Will Blog On Soon…

Young people and church - should we accept church is boring?

marriage - lots of people I know are tying the knot

Thoughts I Have Had…

I need to do more serious blogs

I like php

my cold is on it’s way out I think…yet I’m still coughing

bands are exciting to start

It’s almost a week till I see Jo and I’m excited!

Song stuck in my head…

Secret Crowds by angels and airwaves in particular the line ‘If I had my own world I’d build you an empire’

Finally…a top tip

If you’re travelling by train don’t just book tickets, if there’s changes try breaking down the journey yourself, your tickets may be cheaper.

E.g. I just booked a journey from Chester to Peterborough…put like that it comes to £32…however by breaking it down myself into the two journeys ie chester to birmingham new street, then birmingham new street to peterborough it’s cos £15…so always break down journeys…train companies are cheeky!

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You may remember that a few days ago I commented that I was listening to my itunes library A to Z…yesterday I hit B and so I’ve been listening to Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. I remember being slightly dubious about buying the album, initially I purchased it for two reasons. 1- Matt Thiessen of Relient K lists it as one of the best albums of all time and 2- It has Sloop John B on…a song relient K covered in their acoustic set at the Capitol Records Studios.

The more I listen to the album the more I realise how advanced it is for the time it was made…and more to the point how much of a masterpiece it is, every song on the album is amazing, it’s so much better than all the commercialised beach boys stuff like Good vibrations.

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This isn’t going to be an insightful blog…

firstly I have a cold but instead of sleeping this afternoon I have rediscovered my love for php! I’m re-programming huge chunks of standforchrist so hopefully it’ll have more features…look sexier and be more useful in the next couple of weeks.

(for those who don’t know standforchrist is my website. www.standforchrist.co.uk)

Secondly last night myself, matt and john got together for a jam and what is now a band! We’re kinda piano-punk in a Relient K kinda way…I’ve ended up on piano (something I guess I never expected to play in a band) and vocals (just as unexpected) but we learnt 3 of my songs and sounded pretty good for a first practice.

So if you want a band of christians in about 3 or 4 months time let me know! We’re cheap and easy

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1 - I have an ulcer on my tongue and it hurts….how gay

2 - Inspired by Gareth I am attempting to listen to my entire music collection (on itunes) A to Z…there’s 20 days worth of music and I started last night. I’m still on the letter A…hmmm…let’s see how long it takes

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For under £6 I won 2 Five Iron Frenzy CD’s off eBay…Yay for Christian Ska Punk at affordable prices…. *skanks*

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Park Road is one of those churches where everything usually goes according to the service sheet etc. etc…but tonight it didn’t…firstly one song we had no words for cos the guy who programmed in the computer words put the wrong song in and the other wasn’t in the database, and two we had a guy come in who (I think) was drunk, but was very Christian (in the rawest use of the word) in his drunkenness and requested ‘How Great Thou Art’, so the service finished with a spontaneous song requested by a member of a congregation…in my opinion this made church way more church-like than usual.

I think in church it’s easy to have a service plan and stick to it, a song list and play them however when things go wrong, when spontanousness sets in I think is when God really comes down because God seems to work well in messy situations and situations when we don’t know what will happen next.

I think spontaneous church is the way forward! (to an extent)

I was also pondering on this drunk guy who evidentially new the Christian message, he sung a couple of songs during the prayer time and seemed genuinely happy to be at church and had no inhibitions…probably because he was slightly worse for wear but never-the-less I found it inspiring, I think too often we go to church out of duty, we do the things everyone else does, always too proud to do what we feel deep down we want to do to praise God, too often we make Christianity a religion rather than a relationship.

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I’ve just watched a programme with Jamie Oliver going through the process of battery eggs right from little chickens being born (and male chickens being killed at birth) right up to the end of their year in the battery hen cage when they’re slaughtered and all their bits and pieces are shipped over the world.

A battery hen cage contains around 4 hens, to give you an idea what that’s like it’s like having 4 men in your average sized shower. In four years this process of farming will be illigal but some hens will still be kept in cages just in slightly less crampt conditions.

The problem is that as long as we continue to want cheaper products in supermarkets the longer this process of egg producing will continue. I apreciate that students and people on tight budgets just can’t afford to pay for organic free-range eggs so I have a solution which I personally think is viable.

I think that big supermarket chains such as ASDA, Tesco & Sainsburys are in positions of great power, positions where they should be encouraging us to buy more wisely. The problem is they want to make profit (naturally) yet also want to attract customers by low prices.

Obviously I am no expert in finance and I know that any loss for a business is a bad thing however I also know that supermarkets make very little (if any) profit from bread. Now what would happen if a supermarket was to cut out battery hen produced eggs completely and only sell free-range eggs, but instead of a consequence for this meaning the consumer has to pay a higher price the supermarket would knock the price down at the consequence of making less profit (if any) on the eggs….surely they make enough money on everything else to be able to afford to do that?

Just a thought/theory/suggestion…comments would be nice

NOTE: Gavin informs me that the co-op, sainsbury and waitrose no longer stock battery eggs, and that it’s just Tesco and Asda being evil

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I found this news on the Metro website, it’s about a girl who appeared on the BBC 3 program ‘Sex…with mum and dad’ which I missed, however this girl has had sex with 50 or so guys since losing her virginity at 16, the whole thing seems slightly odd to me largely because it’s such a large amount of guys in such a short peroid of time.

I think the other shock this probably had was that this was a girl in question, I wonder if the shock would have been less if it was a guy who’d slept with 50 girls.

It seems to echo the sex driven society we seem to live in, I know Christians are always banging on the ‘too much sex in society’ drum, and yes perhaps programs like Friends promote sexual promiscuity ie. Rachel and Ross have sex before they say ‘I love you’, however I often find myself wondering how much influence our sex driven society really has on young people and I think it’s one of those 50/50 things, some young people don’t seem to be too effected by the sexual promiscuity promoted whereas others seem to take it on board and I think perhaps rather than it being down to the TV shows and movies we watch perhaps it’s the groups the young people are in.  Peers can have a huge effect on young people and yes, some never give in to peer pressure but some do.

I’m not sure if there’s a set answer to what drove this girl to have sex with 50 guys, I’m guessing enjoyment. The article suggests that her friendship group also had a part to play. However I guess it’s down to the individual and the way they react to pressures.

On that note I end what is probably a jumbled blog about sex…perhaps more thoughts to follow…if I think!

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This article on the BBC News Website suggests that finally people have woken up to the fact that when people buy a CD they like being able to rip it to their computer and put it on their mp3 player…a process which is currently (and stupidly so) illigal, however it may all change….about time too!

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Everytime I hear Relient K’s song ‘Be My Escape’ the lyric

‘It’s the beauty of grace that makes life not fair’

Seems to leap out at me…I don’t entirely know why but I guess it just echoes that we don’t deserve God’s grace and at the same time turns the phrase ‘not fair’ upside down…we’re used to using it when something doesn’t go our way but how often do we say that something good that happens ‘Isn’t fair’.

Interesting….

(I think I blogged on this a while ago!)

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