“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.
July 24th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
but I find it ironic that in severe flooding places have a water shortage…
June 22nd, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
I’m sorry there hasn’t been anything really worth while to read here, I’m having a bit of a dry spell with blogs (on anything thoughtful anyway!), same goes for lyrics, need fresh inspiration!
Had the Survival 3 legged meal tonight, basically you have 3 courses, 3 locations and the young people have to go between them with a partner 3-legged-style! It’s all good fun.
Also having spent two days trawling around peterborough I finally found a pink shirt, which means I’m now read for Joanna’s prom on thursday, I’m really looking forward to it, I’ve never been to one or done a proper dressed up night before 
Not a lot else happening this week, Church has operation kindness so we’ve been praying for it this week, next week we’re opening the church to give away free coffee and cake, also got a toddler dad’s group tomorrow and some people are cleaning the streets of litter before church on sunday, so it should all be good.
Got just over 2 weeks left in Peterborough before I finish for the summer, not huge amounts to do but I know there are some things that need sorting before I go.
Anyway life update over (not that any of you wanted to know)!
June 19th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Ethical Living/ Fairtrade, Uncategorized
There’s now a fairtrade link/ logo on the blog to the right…everyone go fairtrade…and whilst you’re at it abandon the big banks and go with the CO-OP or Smile, they tell you what happens to your money and it’s not mean, doesn’t involve making weopons and is generally much better!
June 16th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
Note: I wasn’t actually preaching merely posing!
June 4th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
June 3rd, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
A month or so ago Laura posted a couple of things from Post Secret onto her blog, since then I’ve been reading the Post Secret blog weekly, basically people write down a secret on a postcard, usually over a topical image and send them in, it’s really interesting, here’s one from this weeks set
‘I’m jelous of religious people because I wish I could believe like them’
For some reason this one is particually thought provoking, not sure why (probably because I’m still attempting to avoid my essay!), but I wonder how many people that is true for, how many people wish they could have a belief like ‘religious’ (oh how I hate that word) do.
On a more general me kinda note I led the service this morning with Chris and Aaron taking part of the sermon each and it went really well, I’m finding leading worship a lot easier these days, I think I’m slightly more confortable with the microphone concept…not sure if I was going through the system though!
June 2nd, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
where I have loads to do, but would like distractions to avoid doing them but can’t find distractions so actually end up just sitting around doing nothing and writing pointless blogs like this….here’s my todo list for the end of tuesday:
- Finish planning service and sermon for tomorrow
- write 3000 word essay
- find out what sociology is for essay
- panic about not knowing what sociology is
- Post and E-mail essay to Oasis
- find other things to do
May 27th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
So the new look is complete and now I have a sexy new feature!
I’ve just been through all my previous blogs and tagged them, now you can browse them by category, there is a category down the right hand side below the links, it means you can find all sorts!
It also reminded me of the Top 5’s (which shall be returning soon), the pic of Kirsten Dunst I used…mmmm
anyway enjoy!
May 26th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve spent todays day off working on the new design for the blog which you are now looking at, I was getting a bit fed up with the blueness of the old design and thought I’d make it a bit brighter and funkier!
New to the blog…
Links! - Links to blogs I read are now right at the top, Links to my projects (music, lyrics, facebook, myspace etc) are now above the blogs banner image along with a new ‘about me’ page, archives are still down the side along with some links to other websites!
Music! - I have some new tunes on the mp3 player, including some Reel Big Fish who Im seeing live on Monday here in Peterborough!
Enjoy the new look blog!
Mark
May 21st, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
So I found out yesterday that I’m meant to plan all the child protection training stuff for thursdays session, am not particually amused what with essays and youth work to do, that’ll teach me to actually bug church about doing training! grrr
May 12th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve finally got around to fixing the mp3 player and added a host of fun tracks including Jack’s Mannequin, Angels & Airwaves, the new MxPx track and a song from the rather lovely Tammin Sursok!
Enjoy
April 23rd, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Ethical Living/ Fairtrade, Uncategorized
Tonight at Doodles I had invited Laura Fenson to come along and lead the evening on fairtrade/justice, a topic which I don’t know huge amounts about and I felt really challenged by what she had to say.
I think more and more I’m coming over to the fair-trade side of things and beginning to think that as Christians we should support fairtrade, after Jesus told us to help the poor and because of big corporate companies such as Nestle cocoa farmers have become poor.
I also think that I am going to try and avoid things like chocolate which aren’t fairtrade and probably boycot Tesco…I can’t quite bring myself to destroy my clubcard but it’s a potential.
April 19th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
Lyrically speaking now has a new template, hope you like it. I’ll be uploading some recordings from last week soon too
April 17th, 2007 by Mark Tiddy Posted in Uncategorized
I arrived back in Peterborough today after just over 2 weeks at home which was awesome, here’s a picture of Dave having 2 meals in the Norwich Weatherspoons
It was a fun two weeks met some new people and got to go to Tab last night which was awesome. God was there!
I went to church on sunday with some cheesy Christian music on which was quite cool and during it I felt God saying that it doesn’t matter on the song as long as it worships him and that church is about that too, a little bit random but that’s God…however not so random when I remembered yesterday I’m leading worship sunday evening with no idea of theme so I can’t pick songs around the theme! PTL!
It did get me thinking though, it’s good to have songs which relate to what’s been spoke about but I think it’s good to just have some songs praising God, whether they’re related or not, tab was like that last night and it was great…churches need more hours of singing!
