My Story

"I had a cerebral conversion - school RE lessons on the Gospel of Mark. I'd been an atheist in my earliest years, but gradually became drawn to the idea of there being more to it than the purely material. The chaplain explained that there was a barrier between us and God (certainly there must be, because you never bumped into Him nipping down to the corner shop, but Jesus had made a way through the barrier. This made sense, it fitted in with reality, and I took it on board. My school was an Anglican foundation, and as a new believer (I had no 'conversion experience', no light on the road to Damascus) the natural thing was to seek confirmation and so that I did. As promised in confirmation classes, I received the Holy Spirit - or at least, it felt like something had happened - and I've had the same experience since. But this was the first time. I was pretty hyper the rest of that day!

Then I left school and went to University. And there I met with the Christian Union. These are basically local groups of the British equivalent of the American Inter-Varsity Fellowship. This was my first experience of charismatic evangelical Christianity, and I embraced it with open arms. it seemed so real, so vibrant, so alive. I was introduced to the full gamut of evangelical theology and morality, and charismatic gifts, experience and expectation of the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, and totally identified with it all. Hands up in the air, singing in tongues, and totally at ease with the idea of everybody except us going to hell. I was enthusiastic. Looking back, I imagine my parents were worried for my sanity, I was so into it. I played virtually nothing but worship songs on the guitar, talked about Christianity all the time, and was desperate for my lapsed and/or agnostic family to believe exactly how I did.

Then after a couple of years I left University (owing to this curious inability to pass exams in my main subject) and went out to work for a few years. Little changed. Except one thing. My best friend at work was a pagan, with strongly Wiccan leanings. And she wasn't what she should be according to the beliefs I'd taken on. She certainly didn't appear to be demon possessed, or anything really. She was a nice person - a lot nicer than some of the Christians I knew, and that bothered me. But it didn't shake my core convictions. Nevertheless, around during this time I had a bit of a gas, got into the heavy rock scene, went to a lot of clubs, drunk a lot of beer, and did the odd bit of dope. I'm still not sure whether the dope did anything for me, because I was usually too pissed to spot any difference.

Then I went to University again, to have another go, believing that maturity was the key to passing these strange 'exam' things. And there things started to fall apart.

Things just stopped coming together. The Christian Union at the new University was far more literalist than what I was used to. I was castigated for accepting evolution, coming across Young Earth Creationism for the first time (with a certain amount of incredulity). People seemed hard nosed, uncompromising, compassionless. I could see great need in the world - oppression, injustice, poverty, inequality, violence and prejudice, but most Christians didn't seem to give a shit.* I talked about how God was for the poor and the oppressed, how He was against injustice and prejudice, but they were much more concerned about whether I thought Noah was a real person or not. Perhaps I'm being unfair - there were some great people out there - Lizzy I hope you read this some time! - but it began to get to me.

Around this time I began to suffer depression. My old certainties were giving way. I began to realise I'd never been as certain as I'd looked, never quite felt as joyful and sorted out as I'd tried to be. When I sang those triumphalist songs with a beatific smile on my face, I'd been trying to feel triumphant and beatific. I'd forced my doubts, uncertainties and concerns down below my own consciousness of them, but now I couldn't do that any more. Being blunt and honest, I also spent two years chasing a girl who didn't want to know, and that did nothing to assist me in resisting the reality of how I felt. God seemed very absent, charismatic worship became meaningless and even an affront to the realities I was experiencing, and 'In His presence' my problems most certainly did not 'disappear' - they were thrown into stark relief against the 'we are always happy, we are never sad, everything is brilliant because we know Jesus blah blah blah' subtext of the worship. I began to question much of the theology I'd learnt, and rejected much of it.

I started hanging out with one or two other Christian Union fringe people who felt similarly, and discovered folk like Jim Wallis, Garth Hewitt, Tony Compolo and others who made me realise that I was not alone in what I thought was important. Also, during this second University period I started going to the Greenbelt festival. Now, this was an eye-opener. All my Christian experience up till then (at least since leaving school) had been charismatic evangelical. Now, a fault within evangelicalism is it does tend to give the impression - seldom explicitly, but often in the background - that it is Christianity. Here I found out differently. I found much that at first set off my 'unsound' warning bells, but I began to realise that a lot of what was being said made more sense than what I was coming from. Most significantly of all, it was to turn out, I came across the worship material and liturgy of the Iona Community.

And so it continued for a couple of years. I got more and more screwed up over a string of love-life cock-ups, failures and so forth. Then came a turning point, at Greenbelt of 1993. I attended the Iona Community's healing service. Here there's no hyping up with repetitive choruses, no admonitions for 'lacking faith', nothing but a simple prayer that God will sort out what is harming folk. And God did. No flashes of lightning - nothing immediate - just a change. I stopped feeling guilty. Guilty about being depressed. Guilty about not being full of the joys of spring. Guilty about not being 'on fire' all the time. Guilty about rejecting much of the evangelical theology. It didn't matter! God didn't mind! God was not in the slightest bit miffed that I thought I was getting a rough deal! I even had this sense that God would feel the same if He were me.

A couple of years later Dave Tomlinson brought out his book 'The Post Evangelical' which gave me something to hang my theology on, as it described very accurately exactly how I'd been feeling and thinking. That was really the last, up till now, big waymark on my road. I still have lots of things to discover, and lots to think about. I have plenty of doubts, lots I don't know what I think about, and plenty of challenges. But my outlook has changed so considerably in the last few years, and most of it was post-, not at, conversion."

André's Story

"I became a Christian at the age of 27. From a non-Christian background I was one of the sixties drop out generation, having decided not to do "A" levels and go to university because no-one could give me a convincing reason why I should. A good job and money were the arguments put to me but I was already in "What's it all about?" mode and the inner voice was telling me that a good job and money were definitely not what it was all about.

In the years that followed I had many jobs, listened to a lot of Bob Dylan, danced to a lot of jazz, spent 18 months on the road traveling to India and back , "did" yoga and Buddhism for two years and, in my search for the answer to the question that would not let me go, read many many books. All to what result ? Zilch! At a low ebb and with the attitude of, well this is the last thing left in the barreI I suppose I'd better look at it, I decided to read the Bible. I found it very difficult to get to grips with but persevered because I sensed that there was something different about this book compared to all the others I had read. Concentrating on the Gospels I came to understand that Jesus was saying that if we pray to God He hears us and responds to our prayers. At this time I viewed Jesus as just another holyman, an expert on things to do with God.

Well, I thought, it's got to be worth a try so, alone in my little bed-sit I prayed, "God please show me why you have made me and what life is all about." and as an after thought I added " I ask in Jesus's name" because remembered Jesus saying that you should do that. Blinding light, heavenly voice? No, just a feeling that I had posted a letter and there was nothing more to do but wait and keep a good look out for the postman. Some weeks later a friend and I were traveling and ended up in Helsinki. There, by a series of coincidences which afterwards I clearly saw as the workings of God, I met a group of Christians called The Navigators. From them I heard and understood the gospel message, saw its significance to me personally AND saw within it the answer to the question that would not let me go. The reply to my letter had arrived. It was as though Jesus Christ had stepped into the road front of me and was saying, "I am what it's all about".

>Disturbingly He was also saying " What are you going to do about it?" I had come to the point where I believed the facts as recorded in the Bible. With my head I accepted that Jesus Christ was who He said He was and understood that His death was the means by which God could forgive and give eternal life without compromising His justice. This was all mind blowing stuff BUT for about a week I tried to find a way around, under, over, out of it. It was clear a response was require, a response that was more than intellectual assent, a response that I was reluctant to make because it included such things as repentance, willingness to submit to Jesus Christ for the rest of my life, to move over and give Him the driving seat.

Well, all those years back, I made that response and God, as he had promised, by His Spirit gave me new life, His life. Still no flash of light or heavenly voice but a peace, a newness, a starting to know Him Who IS what it IS all about. Also, as though some one had switched on a light, the Bible which I had been reading for the last few months at last started to make sense. It was as though the cotton wool had been taken out of my ears and I was at last hearing what was being said.

Since my conversion there have been hard times, failures, confusions and our old friend depression BUT I've never had any major doubts or difficulties about believing that the Bible is directly and divinely inspired, revealing to us absolute truth about God and man. However understanding what has been revealed is often difficult. It is a learning process and sometimes quite perplexing even painful. Nor has the multiplicity of churches and diversity of people who call themselves Christians caused me problems. I realised early on that the visible church was a flawed hotchpotch and that The Church that Christ was building was for the moment invisible. My main problems and struggles as a Christian have been, and still are, to do with myself and living out the faith that has been given to me. It is the Jesus Christ of the Bible Who is The Way of salvation without Him all else is futility and deception. That has been my experience. "

André Fischer July 2001. If you would like to contact me --- afish@crosswinds.net

Dave's Story

"Firstly I'll tell you where I am at the moment. I have just finished studying my first year at uni. I am reading maths and physics, and hope to have a career in that sort of thing if I do well enough in my degree.

Both of my parents were Christian. I was brought up in a Christian home and I count myself very lucky for that. Because I was always taken to church as child it makes it a little difficult to say when I actually became a Christian. I suppose it was something that I grew into to an extent, but there was one occasion when I felt God's touch very powerfully and if I wasn't Christian before that I certainly was afterwards.

It was at Spring Harvest in I forget which year. (That's a Christian conference that happens around Easter time each year). Every evening there was a time of worship and I had really enjoyed those times because there was something different in the atmosphere there than there normally was at church. I hadn't quite been able to put my finger on what the cause was but one night towards the end of the week it was particularly strong. The worship leader was asking anyone who wanted to make a commitment to God to come to the front where there were 'leader' type people who would pray with you. I thought to myself: 'Shall I do that?' 'Nah, no point, you already go to church so there's no need' I answered to myself. Then my legs walked me to the front of the room before I knew what I was doing. I got to the front, and thought to myself 'what am I doing here, I didn't mean to be here'. Then one of the leaders came over and started to pray with me. Again before I knew what was happening I was in tears, my knees gave way, and I had the most wonderful feeling that I have had in my life to date. It felt like all that was bad in me was rushing out. It actually felt as if a large part of me was physically leaving, and in it's place God's Holy Spirit (somehow I knew that it was Him) was filling up inside of me instead. I got pins and needles all up all four of my limbs, I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. All that I could do was to lie there and cry. I have no idea how long that went on for, but by the time it had all calmed down the rest of the room was empty apart from one or two people that had had a similar experience to me. I still could not really walk properly and my legs did not feel that stable underneath me and somehow I bumped into my dad who I had arranged to meet and was getting a bit worried about me.

After an experience like that there was no way that I could deny that I was Christian. It by no means meant that I was the perfect being that Christians are meant to be by any means as the next part of my story shows.

After a few years the opportunity to be baptised came up at my church. By parents had not had me baptised as an infant because they thought that it meant more as a believer, so I went on the course and went through the ceremony. I think I was in my lower 6th year at school so I must have been about 16 at the time. From that point on started the period of my life where my faith has been at it's weakest. I never got to the point where I seriously considered turning my back on things for good, but I did get to the point where I thought that I was going to take a couple of years out and 'enjoy' myself for a bit. That was at the start of uni and I entered wholly into the freshers week thing. By the start of the first week of the proper term however I was a bit bored of the cycle of wake up late, get bored, get drunk, go to sleep, wake up late that fresher's week had been. Then two very nice people from the Christian union came and knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go to the first meeting of the year with them. I felt a bit if a pang of conscience and as I didn't have any excuse I went with them. When I got there and walked into a lecture theatre full of Christians my age (most of them attractive women) I thought, that was the place for me!!! Over the next term and a bit everything went fine. I decided that actually trying to lead a Christian life was a lot more fulfilling than the way I had intended to enjoy myself at uni. I got more involved in the CU to the point where I became a small group leader leading bible studies for a group of about 8 people. It was when I started doing that that the cracks started to appear again.

There were a lot of people in the Christian Union that were of the more fundamentalist kind of doctrine. I found that my fairly liberal interpretation of the bible and particularly the teachings on women were at odds with a lot of the people in the CU, especially a lot of the leadership. As I explored with these people exactly what we all believed it became more clear that I thought there were fundamental ways that they were getting things wrong. I thought that their attitude to the bible was wrong (they put too much emphasis on it) and that they didn't give the Holy Spirit the remit for the power that I think He should have. I found that we had differences on things like spiritual gifts, the elect, the way that evangelism should be approached and various other issues. In the end though they all pointed back to the big thing of how they read their bible and how they interact with the Holy Spirit. I am still trying to sort out how these differences could arise, and whether it is them or I that are wrong. Or even whether either of us are wrong. At the moment I am finding it hard to work with some of the people in that organisation. I don't have respect for a lot of them. That is a problem because I really believe that God can work powerfully in the uni and that our differences are stopping him.

The other big thing at the moment is that several of my close Christian friends have depression. I find it hard to rationalise why God can let that kind of thing happen to people that don't seem to deserve it at all. I know that God's ways are not ours and that He will be working for the good in it all, but I really struggle to see that good at times. I have had one or two shouting matches with Him recently and I think that maybe those things are getting better. I know that I have so far to go before I make those problems up. I know also (in my head if not in my heart) that my main problem is that I can't always trust God with the problems. I know that if I do then he won't let me down, but it's taking that first step into the unknown that I have problems with. Doesn't that sound nice and twee!!

I guess that's about it. I think that in many ways I am growing closer to God despite the problems that I appear to be having. Maybe I've just contradicted myself but I think that as I read the bible more and get a better intellectual knowledge of God, and as I worship him more in an environment where He is allowed to work in people I do see more of the God that I knew back at Spring Harvest. I don't know how to end this now. I'm probably sounding cheesy so I'll stop. "

Dave