Testimonials
Throughout my life I never attended church much. I guess I
would have described myself as a ‘part time’ Christian, attending church for
weddings, funerals, baptisms and the like. I always felt I should come more
often but never had the time. I thought I believed in God but had no foundation
for that belief.
Many years ago I came to St Bart’s to talk to Rev.
Frasier Williams and when leaving he said to me ‘Do keep in touch!’
I attended services at St Barts on a regular basis. I found
the church warm and friendly and I loved the music and hymns.I continued attending and started to get involved in some of
the church activities. I remember thinking at the time, if this is what
Christianity was all about then I liked it, and felt happy and pleased with
myself.
"If you could have a face to face meeting with Jesus what would you ask him?"
After my third question I began to feel a pleasant warmth
around my head and shoulders. I dismissed it initially as an increase in my
blood pressure, except this feeling was pleasant and it continued!
The sermon given by Michael Hibbs was all about that
reading, but by this time I was totally engrossed in the experience I was
having and felt that God was communicating with me.
The service finished, and I could not get out of the church
quick enough because I knew what was going to happen next!
For the next few days I was on an emotional high and didn’t
want the feeling or the warmth to go away. It did fade and I went into a period
of denial, trying to convince myself it did not really happen.
A few days later I plucked up enough courage to talk to Ben
about it. He told me he knew of others who had experienced something similar.
“Now that
you have had this experience what are you going to do about it”?
The first thing I did was share my experience with all at
the next Alpha week.
After this experience the rest of the Alpha course was for me a massive learning experience which I fully embraced and began to understand what the Christian faith was all about.
I am proud to call myself a Christian, but know I have a lot more to learn. I am very grateful to God for giving me this experience.I feel we need to encourage and let them know that their life too will ‘change for the better’ in becoming a Christian.