Reality Begins

Reality Beginshttp://realitybegins.blog.co.uk/en-EUhourly82000-01-01T12:00+00:00Reality Beginshttp://realitybegins.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/c3/220317deb78c5d99b4e2ce649a48a5_160x200.jpgHow I became a Christianhttp://realitybegins.blog.co.uk/2007/04/26/how_i_became_a_christian~2167650/2007-04-26T22:47:47+02:00 <a href="http://realitybegins.blog.co.uk/2007/04/26/how_i_became_a_christian~2167650/#comments">Comments</a> Comments

]]>How I became a Christian!http://realitybegins.blog.co.uk/2007/04/24/how_i_became_a_christian~2155420/2007-04-24T21:36:02+02:00 “Hi, I’m new to this whole blog thing, thought I might as well get stuck in. This the story of my life as a Christian and how I got here. I will hopefully update it regularly, this first one is what has happened up until now and how I have got to the stage I am at. I hope you find it interesting or useful or whatever, I love ready other people’s testimonies and stories of their Faith so I thought I would write my own, Matt” ONE SUMMERS DAY One day I was born, as you may well have guessed. I had a pretty normal childhood, nothing out of the ordinary really happened. My parents were just your average parents and my two older sisters were just your average sisters. When I was about 7 I decided to join the Boy’s Brigade. My mum was working as a childminder at the time and I knew one of the lads she was childminding went and it sounded pretty cool. My sisters were both already part of the Girls’ Brigade. So I went and I enjoyed it. Part of being in the Boys’ Brigade was going to church once a month on parade so I would go sit in the church and listen but quite often I would be waiting for it to end so that I could go home and veg out on my Sunday afternoon. So yeah, that’s what church was for me up until about the age of 16. BECOMING A ‘CHRISTIAN’ One day when I had just turned 16, I got a weekend job in a carpet shop. This job involved working Sunday 10:30 until 4:30 so I could no longer go to church services in the morning. So I would go to work on weekend and school during the week. I still believed in God and if anyone brought up a conversation about religion I would furiously argue my view point. So now I was a ‘Christian’, I believed in God and tried to live a good life…I never went to church or tried to develop my relationship with God, but I was a ‘Christian’. FIRM FOUNDATIONS It got the point during the start of May 2006 and that I started to question my faith in God. And by the time that I went to an Event called Firm Foundations at the end of May I had decided that I no longer believed in him. Now, for those who haven’t heard of Firm Foundations it is a Christian event run by the Boys’ and Girls’ Brigade, there are bands and Christian workshops and bible studies and service on over a four day weekend. So I went and while I was there I went to hear Delirious?, arguably the biggest Christian rock band in Britain. During that Gig I had a really strange feeling, it was almost as if Jesus was saying “I Exist, I am Here” and I started to believe again, and I decided, when I get home I will quit my job and start going to Church. Did that happen? No! I went home and carried on my life in exactly the same way I had lived before. Up until August 2006 that is. THAT AUGUST One of my favourite parts about being a member of the Boys’ Brigade was the week long summer camp in Wales that we go on every year. So along came Camp 2006, and it was awesome. While I was there I became really close with my ex girlfriend Carrie. We had gone out for about two months about 2 and a half years previous to this particular camp. It ended quite badly and well basically she hated me. But then the camp previous to this one we had become friends again. So this year we became pretty close, well pretty much inseperable to be honest. She had a boyfriend who she had decided that she had to break up with because of a number of circumstances, including the fact that she was finding it difficult to be with someone who had absolutely no interest in her faith. Three days after this particular camp they broke up. Quite soon after they broke up we ended up as a couple, many would probably say too soon after they broke up but we couldn’t help it, we loved each other and couldn’t hide it. A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP So what happened next… …She asked me if I wanted to come to an evening service at her church. And I said ‘yeah, why not’. So I went and was hooked. I went again the next week and the next week. I’ve been going pretty much regularly for about 7 and a half months now and it’s awesome, I really feel like I’m developing a close personal relationship with God and it’s the best thing Ever. Well, now we get this last week. Well, since Sunday really. Once a month there is a Youth Service which I always find to be really good and often useful. This Sunday just gone, I went but I wasn’t really in the mood, I was tired from work and I wasn’t really getting into it. So we were supposed to do this activity at this service. We were all given a stone and there was a bucket of water on the stage. We were asked to think about what God had done for us on the cross and the resurrection and the trinity etc. and then think about the bad things in our life that we wanted to let go of. Then we were supposed to drop the stone into the water and it was supposed to represent letting go of the bad things. So after I dropped my stone into the water I continued to think of all this and realised that there were bad things of my life that actually did need to let go of. I was praying and continued to while the next song was being sung. Then I finished my prayer and stood up and started to sing. But the reality was that the prayer hadn’t finished, it was like I’d put down the telephone at my end but God hadn’t hung up at his end. And while I was singing it was as if God was speaking to me, not like a big booming voice, I can’t really explain what the feeling was like but the sense of Gods presence was awesome and it was as though he was telling me that I needed to get baptised. I tried to ignore it but obviously that didn’t work, I mean come on, it is God. So I prayed on it and I was pretty sure that this what I needed to do. A little later in the service the minister said to the congregation something about taking the next step, whether that is accepting God in your life or Baptist etc. So I decided that I definitely needed to talk to him after the service but I was quite shy. After the service I said told Carrie what had happened, struggling not to cry as the whole experience had been incredibly emotional. And she said ‘well what do you think you need to do?’ I replied, ‘I don’t know, what do you think?’ Knowing full well what I needed to do, but needing to here it from someone else. So basically we decided that I needed to talk to the minister. She also told me that she had been praying for me during the service and baptism had seemed to be coming to her mind a lot too. Coincidence? After a while of stalling on my part Carrie called him over and I told him that I felt God was telling me to get baptised. So we chatted for a little bit and then I went to see him on Tuesday morning to discuss it more. Now I’m so excited about getting baptised. I just have to do this course from a book because the Church says that I have to and then Baptism, it’s so cool. I can’t believe that I have found such an awesome friend in Jesus. He is so cool, I’m in awe of it. Hopefully I’ll write more soon. Matt <a href="http://realitybegins.blog.co.uk/2007/04/24/how_i_became_a_christian~2155420/#comments">Comments</a> “Hi,
I’m new to this whole blog thing, thought I might as well get stuck in. This the story of my life as a Christian and how I got here. I will hopefully update it regularly, this first one is what has happened up until now and how I have got to the stage I am at. I hope you find it interesting or useful or whatever, I love ready other people’s testimonies and stories of their Faith so I thought I would write my own,
Matt”

ONE SUMMERS DAY

One day I was born, as you may well have guessed. I had a pretty normal childhood, nothing out of the ordinary really happened. My parents were just your average parents and my two older sisters were just your average sisters. When I was about 7 I decided to join the Boy’s Brigade. My mum was working as a childminder at the time and I knew one of the lads she was childminding went and it sounded pretty cool. My sisters were both already part of the Girls’ Brigade. So I went and I enjoyed it. Part of being in the Boys’ Brigade was going to church once a month on parade so I would go sit in the church and listen but quite often I would be waiting for it to end so that I could go home and veg out on my Sunday afternoon. So yeah, that’s what church was for me up until about the age of 16.

BECOMING A ‘CHRISTIAN’

One day when I had just turned 16, I got a weekend job in a carpet shop. This job involved working Sunday 10:30 until 4:30 so I could no longer go to church services in the morning. So I would go to work on weekend and school during the week. I still believed in God and if anyone brought up a conversation about religion I would furiously argue my view point. So now I was a ‘Christian’, I believed in God and tried to live a good life…I never went to church or tried to develop my relationship with God, but I was a ‘Christian’.

FIRM FOUNDATIONS

It got the point during the start of May 2006 and that I started to question my faith in God. And by the time that I went to an Event called Firm Foundations at the end of May I had decided that I no longer believed in him. Now, for those who haven’t heard of Firm Foundations it is a Christian event run by the Boys’ and Girls’ Brigade, there are bands and Christian workshops and bible studies and service on over a four day weekend. So I went and while I was there I went to hear Delirious?, arguably the biggest Christian rock band in Britain. During that Gig I had a really strange feeling, it was almost as if Jesus was saying “I Exist, I am Here” and I started to believe again, and I decided, when I get home I will quit my job and start going to Church.

Did that happen? No! I went home and carried on my life in exactly the same way I had lived before. Up until August 2006 that is.

THAT AUGUST

One of my favourite parts about being a member of the Boys’ Brigade was the week long summer camp in Wales that we go on every year. So along came Camp 2006, and it was awesome. While I was there I became really close with my ex girlfriend Carrie. We had gone out for about two months about 2 and a half years previous to this particular camp. It ended quite badly and well basically she hated me. But then the camp previous to this one we had become friends again. So this year we became pretty close, well pretty much inseperable to be honest. She had a boyfriend who she had decided that she had to break up with because of a number of circumstances, including the fact that she was finding it difficult to be with someone who had absolutely no interest in her faith.

Three days after this particular camp they broke up. Quite soon after they broke up we ended up as a couple, many would probably say too soon after they broke up but we couldn’t help it, we loved each other and couldn’t hide it.

A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

So what happened next…

…She asked me if I wanted to come to an evening service at her church. And I said ‘yeah, why not’. So I went and was hooked. I went again the next week and the next week. I’ve been going pretty much regularly for about 7 and a half months now and it’s awesome, I really feel like I’m developing a close personal relationship with God and it’s the best thing Ever.

Well, now we get this last week. Well, since Sunday really. Once a month there is a Youth Service which I always find to be really good and often useful. This Sunday just gone, I went but I wasn’t really in the mood, I was tired from work and I wasn’t really getting into it. So we were supposed to do this activity at this service. We were all given a stone and there was a bucket of water on the stage. We were asked to think about what God had done for us on the cross and the resurrection and the trinity etc. and then think about the bad things in our life that we wanted to let go of. Then we were supposed to drop the stone into the water and it was supposed to represent letting go of the bad things. So after I dropped my stone into the water I continued to think of all this and realised that there were bad things of my life that actually did need to let go of. I was praying and continued to while the next song was being sung. Then I finished my prayer and stood up and started to sing. But the reality was that the prayer hadn’t finished, it was like I’d put down the telephone at my end but God hadn’t hung up at his end. And while I was singing it was as if God was speaking to me, not like a big booming voice, I can’t really explain what the feeling was like but the sense of Gods presence was awesome and it was as though he was telling me that I needed to get baptised. I tried to ignore it but obviously that didn’t work, I mean come on, it is God. So I prayed on it and I was pretty sure that this what I needed to do. A little later in the service the minister said to the congregation something about taking the next step, whether that is accepting God in your life or Baptist etc. So I decided that I definitely needed to talk to him after the service but I was quite shy. After the service I said told Carrie what had happened, struggling not to cry as the whole experience had been incredibly emotional. And she said ‘well what do you think you need to do?’
I replied, ‘I don’t know, what do you think?’ Knowing full well what I needed to do, but needing to here it from someone else.
So basically we decided that I needed to talk to the minister.
She also told me that she had been praying for me during the service and baptism had seemed to be coming to her mind a lot too. Coincidence?
After a while of stalling on my part Carrie called him over and I told him that I felt God was telling me to get baptised.
So we chatted for a little bit and then I went to see him on Tuesday morning to discuss it more. Now I’m so excited about getting baptised. I just have to do this course from a book because the Church says that I have to and then Baptism, it’s so cool. I can’t believe that I have found such an awesome friend in Jesus. He is so cool, I’m in awe of it.

Hopefully I’ll write more soon.

Matt

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