How I came to be a Christian
Growing up I remember the few times I went to church with my family. I remember spending a lot of time in the service trying to find the next hymn in the hymn book, wondering when to stand up, when to sit down, when to kneel. But I don't remember any of the sermons. Certainly church was somewhere you went for weddings or funerals, not a part of your life. As for Jesus: "Jesus was a Capricorn..." to quote a nonsense song.
At the end of my 'O' level year of high school, when I was 16, a teacher gave all her students bookmarks with a Bible verse on one side and a hand-written note on the other. I thought that a bookmark with a Bible verse on it should go in a Bible, so I got hold of a Gideon's King James Version.
Throughout university I was friends with a few people in the UCCF Christian Union group, and occasionally spoke to them, looking for a good debate. While at university I also met and became good friends with a girl, Vaniah, whose Christianity was the biggest part of her life.
In 1998, Vaniah moved to London and when I moved here in 2002 she was attending St Helens and invited me to come along, which I did -- a few time. But remained solidly resistant to what I was hearing. I did have lots of debates although these were less fun than I remember from uni because I didn't have the confidence in my position that most of the people I was talking to did in their position defending and explaining the Gospel. I didn't come to church very often and stopped completely because I couldn't answer the questions and didn't want to change my life -- I thought I was good enough without Jesus in charge.
Four years after that I met Heather on a sailing trip and though we were interested in each other she told me that she couldn't be in a relationship with me because I was not a Christian. I started coming to St Helens again, listening to the Gospel and getting into discussions where I couldn't defend my resistance to Jesus. I went to a Christianity Explored course and really started wresting with my philosophy that there was no need to ask big questions because there were no clear answers.
Mark's gospel account of the life of Jesus certainly had big questions such as Jesus asking Peter "Who do you say that I am?" - and it has big clear answers about what Jesus came to do. More than that, I was convinced of the historic truth of the Gospel and the terrifying prospect of living and dying as an enemy of God. On the 19th December 2006 I put my faith in Jesus Christ and asked him to help me live for him.
Changes since then?
At the end of my 'O' level year of high school, when I was 16, a teacher gave all her students bookmarks with a Bible verse on one side and a hand-written note on the other. I thought that a bookmark with a Bible verse on it should go in a Bible, so I got hold of a Gideon's King James Version.
Throughout university I was friends with a few people in the UCCF Christian Union group, and occasionally spoke to them, looking for a good debate. While at university I also met and became good friends with a girl, Vaniah, whose Christianity was the biggest part of her life.
In 1998, Vaniah moved to London and when I moved here in 2002 she was attending St Helens and invited me to come along, which I did -- a few time. But remained solidly resistant to what I was hearing. I did have lots of debates although these were less fun than I remember from uni because I didn't have the confidence in my position that most of the people I was talking to did in their position defending and explaining the Gospel. I didn't come to church very often and stopped completely because I couldn't answer the questions and didn't want to change my life -- I thought I was good enough without Jesus in charge.
Four years after that I met Heather on a sailing trip and though we were interested in each other she told me that she couldn't be in a relationship with me because I was not a Christian. I started coming to St Helens again, listening to the Gospel and getting into discussions where I couldn't defend my resistance to Jesus. I went to a Christianity Explored course and really started wresting with my philosophy that there was no need to ask big questions because there were no clear answers.
Mark's gospel account of the life of Jesus certainly had big questions such as Jesus asking Peter "Who do you say that I am?" - and it has big clear answers about what Jesus came to do. More than that, I was convinced of the historic truth of the Gospel and the terrifying prospect of living and dying as an enemy of God. On the 19th December 2006 I put my faith in Jesus Christ and asked him to help me live for him.
Changes since then?
- How I spend my money - started giving to the church.
- Spending more time with people. I am quite happy on my own or hanging out with Heather, but I know that I need my church family and I can serve them.
- Married to Heather!
- I still struggle, still fight temptation to do my own thing.
posted by Richard Neish at 11:11 AM
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