My faith

I thought I'd follow up my post on faith and what it is by describing my own faith, and how I came to have it, in the hope it might make the previous post make more sense.

So, where did it all begin? Like so many Christians, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family where my parents had faith and shared it with me from a young age. My father still has the pictures that he drew to amuse me in church when I was only a toddler. Then I moved on to Sunday school (or junior church as we called it) and went through the various age groups until I was about 11, by which point I was the only person in the church between the ages of about 6 and 45. Fed up with just being expected to help the smaller children rather than learning anything myself, I started going into "big church" to sit with my mother (my dad was usually at another of our group of churches preaching).

I think that's when I learnt not to blindly accept everything one is taught (whoever is doing the teaching), but to critically evaluate it against what you already know. Methodist churches have what I think is a very good practice of encouraging (trained) lay people to preach, but some of the local preachers didn't have such a good grasp of the centre of the faith and biblical teaching as perhaps they should have done. I've heard some 20 minute sermons where it's 15 minutes into the talk before God or the Bible was even mentioned! But I did learn, not just from church services but also from reading by myself.

I've always loved reading. As a small child my parents read with me, not just Thomas the Tank Engine and Mog the cat but children's bible story books (I hope I still have them somewhere!) and went through activity books based round bible stories with me. When I got older I read fiction books by Christian authors, and (with periods of not being bothered) used children's bible study notes. What I missed out on was the joy of being with other people my age who shared my beliefs, worshipping and learning with them and being able to share experiences and difficulties. There simply weren't any young people's groups locally. Every summer I went to a holiday club run by a church in Norwich, which gave me a real 'buzz' and a sense of what I was missing the rest of the year. I probably learnt more in a week there than I did the rest of the year at my own church.

All this might sound to some people suspiciously like indoctrination. They'd say that children brought up in this kind of environment can't choose whether or not to be part of a faith. They protest that children shouldn't be forced into something they might otherwise have chosen to reject. I understand their objections, but really don't think they need to worry. Many young people do reject their parents' faith in their teens, either because they decide it's not for them or because once they have the option they just don't care any more. That's a problem the church has to address. And merely taking part in the rituals and routeins of church life doesn't make you a Christian- it's the decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour which does that, and that is something between the individual and God, at whatever age the commitment is made.

I made that decision for myself at about the age of eight, as the result of a book I'd been reading (Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St John, a bit old-fashioned but that's not something you realise aged 8!). I think the main thing that influenced me was the idea that God was bigger than all our problems and would be with us all the time and we wouldn't need to be afraid. I just prayed and asked Jesus to "come in" to my life. It wasn't a big deal and I don't remember telling anyone about it at the time, or feeling any different because of the decision. I don't think children find these things as strange or creepy as adults do.

I'd never been a popular child and had experienced a bit of bullying during primary school, but once I'd got to secondary school this got a lot worse. A lot of it was to do with ways in which I was different from other people- I didn't swear, for example,- many of which had something to do with my faith. People I had thought were friends started to either join in the bullying or just ignore it- standing out was dangerous and would have led to them being bullied too. I was hurt by this betrayal, as it seemed, and tended to spend a lot of time by myself. I was lonely, but I knew God was with me and cared about me, even if I didn't understand why my prayers asking for friends and freedom from the bullies weren't answered.

Like many Christians, I often experienced doubts- what if I've got it wrong? What if there is no God, or if I've got the wrong one? When I was fifteen I went on a holiday run by Scripture Union called Harriers. That was the first time in years I had been with other Christians my own age, and I learnt so much and had a great time (and went back for the next six years). It was also the first time that I can say I had an experience of the Holy Spirit. While we were singing the worship song My Jesus, My saviour I suddenly knew that it was true. Jesus was my saviour, he loved me, even though I didn't deserve it. From then on I have had very few doubts about God's existence, because I know he is real. I've felt him at work in my life. Again, it wasn't something to shout about, nothing exciting, but enough to convince me of the reality of God. Not everyone has an experience like that which they can point. And of course my faith in God rests on far more than just one evening's experience.

So there you are. Once I got to uni and joined the Christian Union and St Michael le Belfrey church, my journey of faith changed course and seemed to move up a gear as I learnt a lot about God and began to discover what his plan for me might be. But the really important bit was that by then I had decided that I trusted God. I made the decision, on the basis of hearing about God, that I wanted to know him, to be his friend. So I'd asked him to be part of my life, and he became part of what I was and am. My life would probably have been very different if I hadn't made that decision. But I'm glad I did.