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

I’ve just got home from town and written a blog post (which will appear next thursday for reasons which will be revealed next thursday!) however so not to keep you waiting for a new post here are some thoughts on town…

Firstly town is insanely busy and there seems to be a bizarre mix of Christmas and normality going on…back on the 7th November Queensgate (the shopping centre) launched their decorations and Santa’s Grotto (I can’t help but feel he should still be sleeping until December!) yet with all these decorations there’s no Christmas music playing so although town looks Christmassy it doesn’t feel christmassy (not that I want it to in November I’d just rather it was one way or the other!)…secondly because of all the Christmas stock finding anything in a shop seems to be an impossible task! In the three bigger shops I went into I had to ask where things were which in theory is easy however tracking down a shop assistant requires a lot of energy and wandering!

I think all this is a sign of getting older…there doesn’t seem to be any excitement in shopping in such a incredibly busy place…however I have a solution!

Wander into down during the daytime (before 4!) on a weekday and it’s quite empty, there’s space to breath…you can walk around the shop without tripping over 20 toddlers, 5 walking sticks and being rundown by an old (or just very fat) person in a mobility buggy thing and because there’s not a million people blocking your view you can actually find what you want!

I think I’m going to do all my Christmas shopping on a weekday…or online which of course is even more relaxed and has no risk of being tripped up or run over!

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I’ve been going down to London now for 2 years…the last 2 academic years I’ve been there 2 days a week and this year I’m only there 1 day a week. As part of my journey from Peterborough to Waterloo (ish) I get to ride on the London Underground.

Even though I’ve been on the underground numerous times now there’s still something mysterious and exciting about it.

There’s something about waiting on a station not knowing which way or when the next train will come.

There’s something about feeling the breeze begin to blow through the tunnel onto the station as the next train approaches.

There’s something about the mysterious front lights of the train as it hurtles down the tunnel towards the station.

I don’t know what it is but there’s something exciting about waiting on the underground station for the train to arrive…and that mystery hasn’t really faded in the last two years…although now I notice that sense of mystery less often.

The funny thing is that I started writing this post with the intention of simply writing about the underground mystery however perhaps as a result of getting used to Pastor’s making ‘God-links’ out of everyday activities I wonder if God is a bit like my underground experience.

I guess the bottom line with Christianity regardless of whether you became a Christian or grew up through Christianity and gradually made that decission to follow Christ is that our journey’s are much like my tube adventures.

When we first make that committment we experience excitement, a sense of joy and a sense of mystery in not going what will come our way next but as time goes on that excitement and mystery we experience in God seems to fade away…maybe we get used to the feeling of God there, or maybe we forget what the feeling of God is but often I think it’s simply that God becomes so central in our lives He becomes nothing but a part of us.

Occasionally we may suddenly have that realisation of God’s awesome presence much like I did today with the underground but in reality God can easily just drift into our everyday life.

The thing is I don’t think that’s explicitly wrong but I don’t think it’s right…I wonder if the stage of God just lurking there gives us that luke warm attitude talked about in revelation…the neither hot nor cold approach to Christianity.

I believe that God is much much more than a feeling we experience the same way which whether I feel excitement and mystery towards the underground train or not doesn’t change the fact that the underground is part of my life however I believe it’s important to be aware of the presence of God in the foreground of our lives…God shouldn’t be something pushed to the side but should be in the forefront of everything.

I’ve been reading David Crowder’s book ‘Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi’ and he talks about us living lives which live a habit of praise…a life where Jesus much like the clothes we wear are obvious to those around us and obvious to us.

So I guess my thought on the underground is that I’d love to experience that eager sense of mystery as the train approaches, as I feel the breeze and as I see the lights everytime I catch the underground however in reality I won’t but it’ll still be there and in that same way I won’t experience that excitement I found in God the first time that I really decided to follow Him…the first time I invited His Holy Spirit into my life but He will always be there and I will experience Him in all sorts of different ways…in all these ways I hope He will be in the foreground of my life.

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The credit crunch, breakdown of banks and merging of Halifax and Lloyds TSB seems to have dominated our news the last few weeks…alongside this it seems to be becoming more and more ‘fashionable’ to recycle plastic bags…buy cotton bags instead of using plastic bags and living life in a more ethical manner.

Last year I transferred my bank accounts over to Smile (The Co-op Bank) from Natwest (crapwest) for two main reasons…firstly Natwest were annoying me and secondly the Co-op has a very clear ethical policy which includes making sure that they do not invest in the arms trade, businesses involved in animal testing or goverments/businesses do not support human rights.

Amongst this they also do not invest in companies which have a bad impact on the environment or business which are involved in genetic modifications.

Since this move I have been pondering the implications of ethical banking as a Christian, should there be a link between the bank/building society we use and our faith?

The answer I’ve concluded is yes…let me explain.

If we accept that as Christians the impact of Christ is meant to effect every aspect of our lives then part of our lives is our money and investments. If a Christian operates a business you’d expect them to treat their customers and staff in a way which would reflect the way Christ treated everyone.

The same way (in my opinion) if as Christians we can make sure that we can reflect these views and morals Jesus set out within our banking and investment principals then we should. If we decide that as a Christian war is wrong then is it right to be investing in the arms trade through our banking?

I know that it’s impossible to know what the big high-street banks like Lloyds, Halifax, HSBC, Barclays and Natwest do with our money but it is possible to know what certain banks such as The Co-operative bank, Smile and Triodos don’t do with our money.

So I put it to you that as Christians Christ should be the centre of every aspect of our lives right from the way we treat people up to the way in which we shop and bank.

Remember banking is important to Jesus…’Jesus saves!’

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You may or may not have come across the girl in the states who’s auctioning off her virginity in order to pay for college. If you haven’t here’s an article.

There’s a few things that get me by this article. Firstly I’d expect that many Christians (if not most) will find issues with this from a moral perspective and I follow those footsteps….not just because of sex before marriage but the selling of sex (I believe) is wrong.

Secondly there seems to be a lot of people (including the girls mum) who disagree with the whole process, and I think to an extent I’m surprised at the amount of disagreement in a world where prostitution is fairly rarely condemned and where pornography also often gets the blind eye, to move more locally the area of the states where this is taking place is in one of several states where brothels are legal, yet in this sexually open society there seems to be a disagreement with the whole process.

Some would argue that this disagreement is because she may be hoping that like that last girl to sell her virginity that the buyer will just be bidding high in order to give her the money and let her keep her virginity but who knows her motives other than wanting to pay college fees (I can’t help but feel the £500,000 she’s aiming for will more than manage that!).

I also wonder the type of person who’s likely to bid on her virginity, I’d imagine it would consist of very rich older men or men who get some kind of buzz from taking a girls virginity.

I guess the worst thing is that the whole process is showing our society that the selling of sex is 1 - becoming more acceptable and more worryingly 2 - an easy way to make money. Surveys in Britain have shown that more and more young girls are going into prostitution and escorting because of the good money in it….and with the cost of education (particularly university education) and student loans barely covering housing costs let alone food who can really blame them? The only other job prospects I suspect consist of stacking shelves or pouring pints both of which often pay absolute minimum, as one girl being interviewed on her job as an escort said ‘Uni students are meant to sleep around, the only difference is I get paid to’

So what is the issue here? Is the issue promiscuity? Is the issue the selling of sex? or is the issue greed in our money-hungry society?

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On Sunday night we went out into Great Yarmouth (and finally found somewhere in Yarmouth with no cheese!), on our way back to our cars at midnight we noticed a guy passed out outside KFC and a female friend trying to help him…we thought we’d step in and help out this guy who’d had way too much to drink, so Dave went off with his female friend to find his other friends, we managed to get him to drink some water and sit up.

Dave appears back with this guys friends, one of whom then states ‘Oh he’s laying down facing the ground, I came out of there for nothing, let’s go back get hammered’.

I think I finally understand how Jeremy kyle feels when he yells at his guests who just don’t get it. Why do we have a society that cares more about going back to get wasted than a friend who needs to be looked after, not left in a doorway of a KFC.

On BBC News yesterday Jamie Oliver suggested that people in the UK care more about getting drunk than eating well (Link) and I think he’s right but not just about food, I think people in this country have a very immature attitude towards alcohol, the amount of people who get paid on a friday then get hammered that evening in this country is so high that certain supermarkets are giving staff warnings if they don’t come in the day after a pay day.

When did someone wake up and say ‘I know what’ll be a great night out, I’ll go out, drink a lot, wake up the next morning in my own vomit and not have a clue what I did the night before or who I did it with?’

It just makes no sense…to top it off this girl who stated she had wasted her time coming out to see her semi-unconscious friend stated that she still had £70 to spend drinking…is it just me or is that a waste?

The drinking culture in this country scares me, the way we encourage drinking (particually to young people) is dangerous….the price of drinks at universities is ridiculously low, a couple of months ago it announced that it was cheaper to buy beer in Tesco than water…it’s a crazy world.

If you’re reading this blog I want to hear your opinion of our drinking culture, and your opinion of alcohol, if you like waking up in your own vomit what do you like about it? If you’re sensible and actually enjoy the alcohol for it’s taste rather than effect comment….any comments are good!

Rant over!

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What started as a post exploring the topic of sex before marriage and whether it’s acceptable to expect Christian young people today to wait until marriage seems to be becoming a series.

Ben, Steve and Carl have all made interesting comments on the sex before marriage post and this post (hopefully) takes the next step forward from the sex before marriage post and explores the topic Carl bought up in his comment of how churches except (or usually fail to) people in who practicing sex before marriage (by which I mean doing it…not literally practicing…though practice does make perfect!….)

Finding the balance been excepting a person and not their sin is something only Jesus seems to have managed, those churches/Christians who are accepting get accused of being liberal and those churches/Christians are condemn the sin usually end up being way too conservative.

Now the problem is this….how do we accept someone and welcome someone into a church yet at the same time acknowledge that what they’re doing is wrong?

If we look at the character of Jesus then we see how he did it. If we take the woman at the well he first offered her love, he accepted her, he welcomed her…then eventually he moved onto tackle the sin.

This approach of acceptance and welcoming and then tackling the sin seems to be a good approach, however finding the right time zone between accepting them and tackling the sin is something which is difficult and varied because of the individuality of people.

I’ve come across many people in the past who think they cant be part of a church because they’ve got problems and issues and everytime I hear people express that opinion it drives me crazy…since when was church meant to be a place of perfect people?

The early church was made up of people with plenty of problems, Jesus didn’t preach to the perfect but the imperfect, in the Old Testament God didn’t choose the sorted people but the murderers and prostitutes.

I think this outlines the first point I want to make and that is we need to allow imperfect people into our churches, we need to be accepting and welcoming to everyone.

At the same time we need to accept that once in sinning doesn’t stop, people continue making mistakes. I guess this is one thing you accept with youth work. In an ideal world all the young people in your youth group would grow up following the bible, having amazing Christian experiences and never straying…however it’s not soul survivor everyday and young people make mistakes…they fool around with the opposite sex, they smoke things they shouldn’t and drink too much but this doesn’t mean we reject them…quite the opposite, it means we help to teach them acceptance.

It’s here the church needs to learn a lesson especially with sex, we shouldn’t turn away those involved in any kind of sin whether it’s lying or perhaps more taboo topics such as sex or homosexuality, we should accept them, show them God’s love, welcome them and then in time find a place to challenge them on their actions.

No family sees a family member with a problem, tells them about it then ignores it until it goes away, a family stands by that person, acknowledges that they need extra help at the time and supports them, helping them deal with things at their speed.

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A while ago I started writing a blog on sex before marriage following a comment I head from someone (Christian) who suggested that it is ridiculous to encourage young people to abstain from sex until marriage in today’s society…this was in the week leading up to a Doodles on ‘Sex and relationships’ which never happened and so as a result this blog joined the list of ‘Draft Posts’ on my blog.

The problem is that sex before marriage is a massive topic…and I’m not sure many Christians would argue the biblical basis for waiting for sex until your married and if I’m honest I think God does say to us that waiting to have sex before marriage is the best idea and I think perhaps humans have proved that when we look at the amount of problems people have because of being sexually promiscuous.

One thing I’ve become more aware of recently, particually in younger Christians (or rather my age) is that the things society seems to say is definately okay Christians seem to have bought into, the idea that it’s okay to get drunk (particually on birthdays), the idea that perhaps fooling around with the opposite sex is fine and perhaps even swearing becomes something compromised…I don’t know!

The problem with this is that we begin to separate Christianity and the importance of the bible, if we believe that the bible is God’s word and that God never changes his mind then surely sex before marriage doesn’t need to be questioned?

The thing is that we interpret this is different ways, and the problem with sexually related ‘naughties’ is that often it’s easy to twist our interpretation to fit what we want, so I believe that when we form our views on ‘how far is too far?’ or have that ‘boundaries’ conversation we need to be thinking if we genuinely believe what we’re saying or if we think we’re fiddling God’s word to suit ourselves.

I’ve often heard people say ‘it’s okay to have sex…we’re gonna get married’, the problem with this is that it’s naive, you never know what could happen in a relationship whether you’re close and everything’s cool or not and also if sex is meant to be a wedding gift from God as I’ve often heard preached then surely it’s the same as a child opening all his gifts on Christmas eve?

I’ve also heard people say that in God’s eyes once you’ve had sex you’re married…the problem with this is that it misses several points. Firstly if (as Christians) we’re meant to respect the laws of our country then whether we think sex = marriage or not the fact is we’re not married in the eyes of our country.

The second problem with that view is that actually in the bible we read ‘for this reason a man will leave his Father and Mother and be united as one with his wife’…in the sex = marriage situation I’m not convinced that there’s any leaving of mum’s and dad’s 9 times out of 10. The other problem is that actually this is (in my opinion) the wrong interpretation of marriage in the bible.

Often in biblical times before a man could marry his fiance he would have to build an extension on his parents house for them to live in (this is similar to what Jesus talks about when he discusses there being many rooms in his Father house), in other biblical times the marriage was official after sex but there was ceremonies before that (often followed by the bridge and groom going into a tent to ‘do it’ with their guests waiting outside).

Finally I think the ’sex = marriage’ approach loses value of marriage, I do not believe that God intends sex to be the only significant different in marriage, I believe that God intends marriage to be 2 people giving themselves completely to each other, two people committing to love each other through the good and the bad times and the easy and the hard times.

However we clearly live in a society that says sex is okay, a society that pressures us to lose virginity (perhaps the film American Pie sums this view up) so is it realistic of us to expect young people to save themselves for their future missus (or mister)?

Perhaps there are more pressures around today to have sex than there has ever been but I think there are two things we need to make clear to young people on the matter of ’sex before marriage’

Firstly we need to make it clear that it is entirely possible with God’s help - We need to help young people realise that it’s not a daunting, impossible target but something you can manage with God’s help, by being mature about boundaries with boyfriends/girlfriends and also (much life with alcohol) knowing your limits…if after kissing a girl you have an undesirable urge to have sex with her (and probably will then is that a good idea? The same goes for everything up to sex from ‘hand sex’ to ‘oral sex’.

Secondly we need to make clear the idea of God’s forgivenesss, too often young people feel guilt when they’ve made mistakes in the sexual area, and often I think the church causes that guilt without meaning too, we need to remember (particually youth workers) that we are there to not just show young people that God can help them save themselves but at the same time help young people realise that ultimately they have a loving God who will forgive them not a God who’ll turn his back on them for a mistake.

i believe that today our message of waiting for sex until marriage is no different regardless of what society says, and I believe that we need to help young people realise that, that we need to challenge societies views at the same time showing the world a loving, forgiving God.

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In July I’m going to see Ben Folds in Sheffield and a while ago on his ‘Rockin the suburbs’ album he wrote a song called Mr Jones which was basically about someone being forced to leave a job they’d done for years because they were too old.

Now I’ve been thinking recently about how true this is in our churches, how often do people reach a particular age and we stop them doing the children’s work because they’re ‘too old’?, how often do we decide that people are too old to serve yet tell them they can ’still pray’?

The problem with this is that, firstly prayer becomes something that becomes almost a negative thing for someone to do, if we’re not careful it can become a ‘hmm….now what can you do for our church…you can’t do this…that wouldn’t be suitable…umm…just pray for our church’. Prayer shouldn’t be the last resort, nor something someone does when they can’t do anything else but it should be seen as the most important part of our ministry, behind everything prayer should be going on, as well as someone helping with the youth group they can (and should) be praying for the youth work they’re doing.

The second problem with the attitude above is that we automatically write off old people, have we not thought that some of them can still serve? In fact, all of them can!

It might not be suitable that they help out with the youth ministry but perhaps a less energetic role is there for them? What about encouraging them to welcome new people to church? Look out for new faces and talk to them? What about encouraging evangalising to their friends and people they meet? As many of you will know most old people can talk for hours!!!

Let’s not forget though that in some situations it can be suitable for someone elderly to continue an active role whether it’s doing children’s work, managing the friday night drop-in tuck shop or helping to move tables and chairs around the church.

We have to remember that in the bible people didn’t just reach a particular age and stop serving, they either kept going or found a ministry suitable for their current state, let’s not write off our OAP’s in churches…if they all did things I truly believe we’d see a massive change in our churches.

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During my time at Spring Harvest in April we met (one evening) a group of girls (between 12 and 14) not in the main session, we asked them why, their reply was detailed and had obviously been discussed by them in detail, they discussed all the reasons for the leaders being ‘hypocrital’, saying one thing yet doing others. One example being throwing a flan in someone’s face and then talking about how we just waste food in this country when we shouldn’t.

Now the thing is that on the surface these girls have a point, although perhaps taking what was being said a little too seriously, however the thing that got me was how cynical they were and how they were going into these sessions just to pick holes.

This challenged me, I am naturally very cynical and the challenge I faced in challenging them was that by doing that I was challenging myself and actually in the end I just said to them ‘before you go into the next session ask God to show you one thing in that session and look out for that one thing not all the negatives’.

The fact is I (like many others) find it very easy to find faults with things, if you read through this blog you’ll find my faults with the church, with Christians and even if you go far enough back some specific churches…and the problem is that it’s all too easy to moan about it.

For instance one thing that gets me about Christians is that they moan a lot about things in church if it’s not to their taste, however by moaning about this I think I’m wearing their shoes (so to speak) and the trick is how to turn the negativity into something positive.

If we continue to take the negative things we see and discuss their negativity we will just become a cynical, bitter bunch of hypocrites.

The difficulty is finding a way to take the thing we see as negative and make something positive and I don’t know that I entirely know how but I guess every situation is different….it’s so easy when someone mentions someone you don’t like to mutter something negative, we all have things or people that rattle our feathers but we need to work out how to make this positive.

The church is full of negativity…and I am probably part of that to an extent. My big thing in the last few months has been about judgmental Christians and yes, I’ve ranted about it, however I’ve also tried to do the opposite, one of the things a young person at church wrote for my portfolio said that ‘you can tell him things and he won’t judge’…although for them that might have been a throw-away comment to me it was reassurance that I had actually managed something positive from something negative.

The challenge to all of us however is to bite our tongues and rather than moan or rant find a positive angle…or at least move on from that rant.

I’ve been reading a book on Lamenting in church and the author talks about the pattern for a psalm of lament is roughly: have a rant, tell God what he should do, praise Him, so if we take that approach to our negativity let’s have a rant if we have to, think about how we can make a positive difference and then praise God by doing that.

That is my challenge…why don’t you join me…

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If you haven’t head there is a healing revival going on in Florida and people are flooding there, it’s being headed up by Televangelist Todd Bentley, if you google search you’ll find all sorts on it, in particular the ‘Fresh Fire Ministries’ website which includes Desktop Wallpapers for the Florida Revivals plus a live stream.

Apparently the revival has been going on for almost 50 days and so far at least 12 have been raised from the dead…

So why blog on this?

Recently I’ve been reading a lot about healing in particular from books by Pete Greig and Philip Yancey, both written about prayer, but including a lot on the topic of unanswered prayer. Greigs book ‘God on mute’ focuses largely around the unanswered prayer him and his wife face for her severe epilepsy.

Now I completely believe in the healing power of God, I believe that he does heal today, however this kind of thing makes me uncomfortable…if people have been raised from the dead I cannot argue with that, nor if people have been healed of physical sicknesses…in particular when mainstream TV in America is reporting on this too, however I do question it, no where in the bible do mass healings seem to take place, in fact, there isn’t a huge amount of healing in the bible, there is far more suffering than healing.

I also wonder what kind of Christians this revival is producing, to me it seems to run the risk that Christian’s who’s faith is purely based on the experience of God are going to be the result, however unless we disciple these people properly and teach them about unanswered prayer too and the difficulties of life they’re going to come to the first hurdle and give up…Jesus didn’t teach his disciples to have a fluffy life but to have a difficult one, he taught them about unanswered prayer, he told them that they’d be persecuted and even killed for their faith. I wonder how much of this is being told to the new converts in Florida?

The fact remains that more often than not we find our prayers of healing unanswered, I don’t think it’s because of our lack of faith, or because of sin in our lives but just that sometimes God is beyond our understanding, if every prayer we asked was answered God would be a vending machine, if God never drew away from us our faith would be based on a feeling and a faith based on a feeling is only good as long as the feeling stays.

I don’t have any reason to believe that God isn’t working in Florida, although if I’m perfectly honest the whole thing makes me very very uncomfortable and I’ll be interested to see the long term effects…I just wish people would report of not being healed there as well as those being healed reporting…I also hear (from someone who was telling me about it) that people are being healed just by watching it on the God Channel, and yes I’m sure God can work through TV but I do feel very uneasy about the whole thing.

Comments would be good readers…

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“You can’t save everyone…” - that is the phrase mentioned to someone I know in regards to starting some youth work at said persons church (I keep things vague purposely!). Now as a Christian (and if I’m honest one who isn’t a calvanist!) this annoys me…however as a church youth worker this seriously frustrates me.

The Times (todays I think) had an article all about church decline and how it’s predicted that in 40 years if the church continues to decline then no-one will be left…young people in particular seem to be few and far between in our nations churches…but the question I ask is “have we given up?” Now on the surface the phrase ‘You can’t save everyone’ is less of a phrase and more of a fact, I know full well that every young person I come into contact with is not going to become a Christian however when we take the ‘you can’t save everyone’ in the context meant in the first paragraph it comes less truth and more surrender…God never gave up on us, when the Israelites kept messing up God was always looking for new ways to save them…to save us…and finally He sent Jesus who did just that, He came to save us. So why do we suddenly forget this persistancy of God and give up? I stated above that I know every young person I come into contact with won’t become a Christian, some may never become Christians others may just require time…however if we’re not there to sew the seeds then how will they ever know about God? The church (generally) let down young people, we expect them to swing along with whatever older generations are used to, and yes I agree there has to be some in between, some mix of the old and new however these young people aren’t tomorrows church as we so happily throw around in defence of our youth work (I don’t!) they are the church of today!

The attitude of giving up on young people saddens me…and I’m pretty sure it saddens God, the New Testament makes it clear that no-one (neither Jew or Gentile, Slave or Free) is not open to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, so why are we making a rule that young people are? (In some places) I’ve said it before and I shall say it again, the idea of ‘youth churches’ makes me uncomfortable, I firmly believe we need a family dynamic in the church, we need the wiseness of those who are old-in-the-faith, we need the ‘floaters’ who perhaps aren’t called to help out but are dedicated, passionate prayers for the work going on, without these people I suspect many of our churches attempts would fail miserably! However the more I think about it the more I wonder if the ‘old church’ is leaving us with no option but to have youth churches, if these churches are a place where young people feel valued, loved and accepted then to me it is filling the gap the wider church misses, if these places explain the gospel in the exciting, passionate way Jesus did then they are filling the gap often missed by the wider church and if these places allow young people to enter into a relationship with God and disciple them into the faith then I can really have no grounds for dismissing youth churches because often they’re not treading on toes (although a few sheep may shuffle) but they’re filling in the missing gap…reaching out to the group that often seems so difficult to reach to the average church or even the group your average church have given up on in a ‘well you can’t save everyone’ mentality then I am not going to critique them.

I do however hope my generation and the next generation learn from this and don’t fall into the ‘I want church my way’ trap because church was never intended to be about ‘us’ but about God - praising Him in everything

Note: Some churches do not fail young people, there are plenty that do the opposite, there are plenty that create an awesome family feel and operate in a way accessible to everyone, providing the right things for young people and older people alike, actively reaching out into communities and discipling in those who give their lives to Christ.

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This blog is mainly aimed for people googling for help!

I have been having an issue with my Samsung G600 since I got it, the issue being that when I have put mp3’s on it whether the phone recognises the ID Tags (i.e. whether it tells me the artist, album etc) has been a bit hit or miss…I’ve tried every type of tag within the mp3 format, compared the mp3’s that show up and those that don’t and found no solution.

However in itunes you can convert them to AAC audio files which are different to mp3’s but effectively the same idea…and they work! The tags display perfectly…to do this in itunes…

1 - Install Itunes - apple.com

2 - Click File > Preferences > Advanced > Importing and set import format as AAC

3 - okay that then right click the mp3’s you want to convert in your library and choose ‘convert to AAC’

4 - wait for the conversion!

5 - put on your g600 and enjoy!

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The title says it all…or rather quotes the poster currently in our display board which sits outside of church, as I walk home from the station I tend to glance to see what posters we have (I keep meaning to add some that actually advertise church events!) and one of the posters currently reads in big, bold letters

‘JESUS Loves You Passionately’.

Now don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t agree with the poster more, His death on the cross echoes his passionate love for us amazingly and in my reading of ‘God on Mute’ by Pete Greig (which I’m rapidly getting through and will with no doubt share more thoughts on it once complete) the emphasis on Jesus’ ‘take this cup of suffering away from me, yet not my will but yours be done’ prayer is a core part of the book, reminding us that Jesus submitted to God’s will. The passionate love Jesus had in that situation meant obedience to God, it meant submitting to what was about to happen to Him because he knew it was for the greater good and was God’s will.

However what does ‘Jesus loves you passionately’ actually mean for the people passing our church?

What does it mean for the alcoholic who sits on our doorstep?

What does it mean for the prostitutes?

What does it mean for the daughter mourning the loss of her father?

What does it mean for the young person running away from home?

What does it mean for the broken hearted?

My point is that love itself is unconditional (or should be), God’s love for us doesn’t get more or less depending what we do, it is impossible for God to love us more, however I suspect that the people listed above would merely answer the poster with ’so what?’ or ‘he’s got a funny way of showing it’. Perhaps this is where we need to be not just stating that Jesus loves you passionately but be passionately showing that love.

We need to be getting alongside the alcoholic, talking to him, helping him, praying for him.

We need to be finding ways to help the prostitute

We need to be crying alongside the daughter…and so on…

I am reminded of a greeting card I got sent a few years ago, on it was a man, desperately clinging to his car in a flood, he resorts to praying and asks God for help. Soon after a man in a boat passes and offers him help but the man replies ‘No, the Lord will save me’, soon after the same happens again, once again the man replies ‘no the Lord will save me’, eventually a helicopter passes over and asks the man if he needs help, the man replies again ‘No, the Lord will save me’…the man drowns.

In heaven  the man asks God why he didn’t save him, God replies ‘well I tried, I sent you 2 boats and a helicopter’.

The point of my rather silly story is that 9 times out of 10 we see God in people’s actions and the poster ‘Jesus loves you passionately’ is absolutely true however I wonder if people can see that, because if they cannot see that love then surely it’s no good to them? As a church we need to show that love, we need to show the world, through our actions that Jesus loves them passionately!

Anyway thoughts over, I’m off to house group soon.

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Okay…here I go with the long awaited marriage blog, I’m currently sat on a train on my way to Sheffield enjoying the luxury of free wireless internet on the National Express East Coast trains and so thought I’d finally get down to business of this blog on marriage, and to be honest, I know it’s long awaited and it’s also a subject I want to blog on and explore, however at this current state in time I have absolutely no idea where it’s going…

Firstly a few truths…

1 - I believe marriage is a good God-given thing

2 - I think people getting married is a good idea

3 - In turn I also agree that sex within a marriage and not before is the best idea

Now onto the blog….

Blink 182’s music video for the song ‘Stay together for the kids’ begins by flashing up the statistic that ‘50% of America’s households are broken up by divorce’…the shocking statistic introduces the song nicely, written by Tom Delonge about his parents divorce when he was 16, he described the song as being about the moment when he sat in a car on their drive coming to terms with what was going on.

Looking up other statistics it appears that America has a slightly higher divorce rate than Britain, Britains divorce rate from resources I can find appears to be similar to those of america with several sites also quoting 50% of marriages in Britain ending in divorce.

It seems that people’s view of marriage seems to be getting more and more negative, with more couple choosing to just live together in a long term committed relationship and with high profile divorce cases such as Paul McCartney and Heather Mills the general opinion of marriage seems to me to only have the ability to go down hill…thinking of divorce I can name a lot of famous couple’s who have got divorced (Britney, Pamela Anderson etc.) yet trying to think of a couple who’s marriage seems to have lasted only brings the Beckhams to mind.

If I look more locally it seems that many of the young people I work with, in particular on the Prince’s Trust teams come from broken homes…we seem to be surrounded by divorce and unsuccessful marriage…

However at the risk of doing a divorce blog this is where I stop because I know a lot of happily married couples, my parents have been married for over 30 years (I think!), Mike and Yvonne who I live with in Peterborough have been married over 25 years, Joel and Vicki have been married over a year and a half, Ben and Laura (who’s wedding I had the pleasure of attending in september) are also happily married…Ben’s facebook status yesterday stated that he was in love with La (his wife!).

So it’s not all bad…and to add to the joys of married couples I know several people getting married this year…Esther and Steve, Stuart and Steph, Rebecca and John and Shane and Rachel.

Writing this however I realise that the list of married or soon to be married couples I have compiled all have one common characteristic…they’re all Christians…now I’m by no means stating that Christian marriages never end because some do…merely observing that many married people I know are Christians.

As a Christian myself I think the marriage idea is embedded into me as something good, and from my experiences of marriage (couples stated above) I have no doubt that marriage is a good thing, all of the people above show no bad points for marriage and do nothing but remind me that it’s a good idea.

The Bible’s View

Of course as a Christian blogger it would be silly to blog on marriage without looking into what the bible has to say…however because I want to focus on my view’s and ideals for marriage I shall do this briefly!

Okay well right at the beginning of the bible God makes Adam, decides it’s not good for man to be alone and as if by magic using only a rib Eve is born into the world…randomly I think perhaps Eve and Jesus are the only people in the bible to have been born without sex!

So Adam and Eve are married, they have children…as we continue to zoom through the bible lots of people get married and marriage is shown to be a fairly good thing, some couples fall out and want divorce and reluctantly they’re given it…shoot into the New Testament and Jesus briefly covers a bit on divorce, discusses how it’s not good to look at a woman lustfully etc. In Paul’s letters we read something like ‘it’s better to get married than burn with lust’ at the same time Paul describes the calling to be single as a high calling but still in my opinion on the whole in the bible marriage is a good thing.

So what is marriage? In bible days marriage sex was what finalised the marriage so to speak…now days perhaps we have more of a ceremony and legal stuff etc and perhaps in our secular society sex is becoming less and less of a marriage thing and more of a fun thing which most couple do before marriage.

That’s not to say people don’t wait (both Christian and non-Christian), I tend to go with the view that sex before marriage isn’t really the best idea in the world and waiting is best…however I also believe in a forgiving and loving God should people mess up.

For me I think marriage is a little similar to baptism (of the very wet variety), the same way baptism is about standing up in front of friends and family and declaring your faith in Jesus, love for Him and stating your commitment and showing all this through a very public act I think marriage is similar. Marriage, for me, is about committing yourself to the person you love most in the world (of course Jesus is still number 1!) in a very public way, it’s about promising to love them and stick with them through thick and thin in front of your friends, family and importantly God, and I think sex is God’s wedding present to a couple…and also a way for married couples to worship! (roll on marriage!!!)

More than meets the eye…

The thing with marriage though is that it’s much more of a commitment than meets the eye, in the bible the relationship between Jesus and the Church is described as that of a bride and groom (Jesus being the groom, bride being the church), now if we think of the commitment Jesus has to the church there are huge implications for the groom/husband. Jesus loved the church (God’s people) that he was prepared to give up anything to save them even when that meant death. A husband therefore (in my opinion) should be willing to do the same and not out of duty but out of love (like Jesus did).

Of course this means that a marriage (and indeed any relationship) needs to be one where both parties are selfless…remembering to put each other first in all situations, perhaps the reason so many marriages end in divorce is because people just won’t submit to each other, they get stuck being selfish not selfless (Of course I apreciate this isn’t the reason for all marriages ending).

Much as I could probably ramble quite easily for a lot longer on marriage I think this is where I shall call it a day…I think I’ve only begun to explore the values in marriage, the way married couples should act towards each other and also what the bible says. I also appreciate that perhaps this will be seen as quite a naive post particually as I’m not married…I also suspect that if I come back to this blog in years to come when perhaps I will be married (I hope I will be) that I may have more to add or at the very least have more of a sense of what it means to be selfless completely…as I’m sure the majority of that comes with living with someone/being married to someone.

Comments from readers married, unmarried and unsure of which they are are always good!

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…I feel enlightened.
Yesterday afternoon at uni we visited London Central Mosque…now I’m not entirely sure how it quite fits with youth work or ministry other than one session we’re doing in a couple of weeks is all about Islam. However before I slander the course which I’m not going to I thought I’d share some of my insights from the mosque visit.

In all honesty I have to say I wasn’t looking forward to the trip, I expected to feel unconfortable and quite closed towards what they had to say…however the views shared with us by the muslim who gave us the tour were quite insightful (although I think he was a semi-liberal muslim!).

The first thing that surprised me was that the prayer times they have aren’t set in stone and if you miss one you simply fit it in somewhere else…no hell and brimstone for missing a prayer time!

Secondly it’s a much more loving religion than I expected…in fairness I think most people’s minds have been corrupted by the bad press muslims get because of things like Tube Bombings, 9/11, the events in the middle east and of course The Daily Mail* One of the main things the muslim shared about Allah was emphasising him as being a loving god.

Thirdly their way of forgiveness is also good, although his version of Christian forgiveness was a little wrong (he said something like, ‘you Christians do something wrong, say ‘I have Jesus, sorry for doing that’ and it’s all ok). The muslim forgiveness says that you need to ask for forgiveness from the person you’ve hurt/stole from first before going to Allah.

So what do I take from the afternoon as a Christian…

As a Christian who is not converting despite having my opinion of Islam changed and my understanding developed I take a few things with me from the afternoon.

Prayer - Although every inch of me shudders at the idea of ’set’ prayer maybe the muslims are onto something. I’m reading a book by Philip Yancey on prayer at the moment and I’m beginning to think that making a discipline to pray (for example in the morning) actually greatly benefits prayer life…and this afternoon just re-emphasised that thought for me.

Forgiveness - I was also reminded that we mustn’t get too caught in the ’say sorry to Jesus and it’s ok’ trick. We need to remember that although it is through Jesus we have forgiveness the Lord’s prayer also says ‘as we forgive those who sin against us’ which suggests 1- we need to be forgiving people, but Jesus also talks about not letting the sun set whilst we have a falling out with a brother which reminds us that we need to reconcile with other people as well as saying sorry to God.

and finally something to chew over…

I also realised that muslims follow more of the Old Testament than I thought, admitidly they perhaps pick and choose a bit of it however it does beg the question ‘Is Allah ‘God’ as Christians refer to God?’. I shall chew this over, read comments etc. although I’m not entirely sure it matters because even if he is (and I don’t know) then Christianity still incorporates Jesus and accepts him as the Son of God who died for us and rose again which perhaps is the more defining factor of Christianity/important part.

Those are just some thoughts for you all…comments are greatly appreciated.

* - ‘I think the Daily mail should be banned. A journalistic style that is essentially: here is the story (i.e shocking calamity) but you need to understand that the actual issues are single-mums, teenagers, immigrants or all three!‘ - taken from youthblog.org

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