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

We have an electronic drum kit at church…everytime I play it a little part of the drummer inside me dies…

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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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From Cartoons

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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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Here is the working poster for our water give-out we’ve been doing the last couple of months at church. We’re out on the streets of Peterborough again this friday until 2am handing out water and chatting to people! Fun, fun fun!

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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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“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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For those that don’t know I run a monday night youth group as part of my job called ‘Doodles’, from January it’s been weekly alternating between social nights and serious/more God-focused nights…and this term we’ve been doing a ‘Coping with…’ series.

Tonight’s ‘Coping with’ was titled ‘Coping with God’ and was all about the parts of God we struggle with, as part of it we had a time of quiet/prayer where we had Tim Hughes’ ‘When Silence Falls’ in the background whilst I invited the young people to write down the things they struggle with (God-wise) on paper as a way of expressing but also a chance to ask God to help with them.

We followed this up by going through them on an anonymous basis and encouraging everyone to have a go at trying to answer the coping issue, it turned into an awesome session where they all came up with some awesome stuff.

Now I appreciate asking young people to think about their struggles and questions is perhaps a little unusual but why? I think we need more opportunities within church and youth groups to question, to wrestle with God, to lament. I’ve recently got a booklet about lamenting in a church of praise and I’m hoping reading it will give me ideas of how to build lament into church more because I think we need to.

Note: If you think the session sounds interesting it will feature on the new version of Stand For Christ which is probably about 2 weeks away from completion!

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Pete did something on this with the young people at church this morning, it’s really thought provoking so have a read. (It’s from 24-7prayer.com)

The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says “what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?” I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don’t you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo’s! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

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This is a video clip from a program called ‘30 Days’…it’s by the same guy who did ‘Super-Size me’. It’s quite thought provoking!

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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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Tonight I led worship at church on acoustic guitar…usually I lead on electric, infact this is only the 3rd time I’ve used acoustic, and I don’t think God likes it and here’s why

The first time I played acoustic at church the strap snapped

The second time I played acoustic at church the strap also snapped (another new strap broken!)

The third time, for no reason at all, 25 minutes into the sermon my guitar randomly falls off it’s stand.

Conclusion…divine forces are in action, thus suggesting that the Lord God Almighty actually dislikes my acoustic guitar…I shall therefore only be playing electric in churches from now on.

If anyone has an alternative meaning to my acoustic guitar issue feel free to comment, alternatively I’d be interested to experiment when using a different acoustic guitar so if someone wishes to buy me a Takemine or nice Yamaha electro-acoustic so I can find out feel free too!

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I found this on ASBO Jesus (link)

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