0 – 14, The years of Unknowing / confessions of a Loner

As the more astute (Posh word for brainy) of you may have noticed, It’s been a while since I updated this Blog. I’d love to tell you the story of how this was because God called me to central Africa to rescue starving orphans dieing of Horlicks poisoning by upgrading there computer network to accept potatoes instead of flash memory sticks. However it doesn’t take complete genius to work out that I’ve just made that up (well with some help from a Stephen Fry sketch, look up Stephen fry gets wired) and have just not gotten round to updating this.

So in my first Blog update I started my Story with “I was born” and I’m going to pick up from there. Before we get started however a word of warning here, this update will cover 14 years of my life and clearly will not be able to cover everything that happened in that period. I may well Blog again about bits and Bobs that come to mind in future updates.

So After being born I was a Baby, then a toddler (I’m told, I really don’t remember) and my earliest memory is of going for a walk with my Dad, walking our Springer Spaniel at the local park and commenting on one of our neighbours garden ornaments (a miniature windmill) and asking why we couldn’t have one, random but true. I also remember my Brother and sister coming along (They are twins and almost polar opposites) and I have a vague recollection of being left at our neighbours house for the day when my Mum was in hospital with my Brother and Sister because my Dad couldn’t get the time off work to look after me.

 Jump ahead a few years, we’ve moved, to where my parents are now, its just before my little Sister was born (I have two sisters and one brother) and My Mum is taking us to a newly started up Sunday School at the Primary school I’m attending at the time, at least I think its this kind of time, this was when I was five so you will forgive my memory being a little fuzzy. I remember my Dad telling us at the time that he didn’t let my Mum get us Christened because he wanted us to be able to make up our own minds (My Dad is not a Christian, but that is a WHOLE other subject). My Mum told us she was taking us to Sunday School so we knew about at least one option of what to believe.

At Sunday school we sang all the usual Action based songs that children’s workers up and down the country will recognise, w were told all the Bible stories, Noah and the Ark, Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath, Even Zacchaeus and him climbing the tree. This was great for a bit, I even remember feeling something shooting up my spine when we sang particularly rousing Hymns. However When they told us of Jesus, I was always that he died for our sins, indeed the only detail we got was of his Birth, which we had to re-enact every year and the nativity and if you were a boy you were either a wise man, and got prodded with Needles when they were making your costume whilst you were dressed only in your underwear otherwise, or a Sheppard, which was much of the same experience but with less lines. Only the popular boys were picked to be Joseph, those that could memorise Bible Verses every week and those that understood what was going on. I could never memorise a Bible Verse, my mind just can’t memorise things that way and coming from a household that didn’t really value Church or the Bible outside Sunday (I think my Mum did but she deferred to my Dad who isn’t a Christian) I didn’t practice them. So I really hated being asked to recite the verse when we got back each week. This also meant that my view of Jesus as a Child was that he was either a Baby, so cute but both harmless and dependant on you rather than the other way around, or he is Dead, because we were always told he died for our Sins. I’m probably over generalising and missing huge swathes of things that we were told that I just didn’t pick up on, However since I stopped going to Sunday school at age 12 its not surprising that I don’t really remember it with crystal clarity.

We were only ever told of Jesus’ Death and resurrection at Easter, and this concentrated on the empty tomb not the fact he died and why he died. To tell a 12 year old child, whose Dad is drumming into him every day that you don’t need to be a Christian to be a good person, that Jesus died for the sins of the world, without really explaining to that child what Sin is, isn’t really going to get through to them. I do I think need to point out here that he Sunday School teachers did the best they could, We were children at the time and not really mature enough to accept the reason Jesus died, or how he died (I actually had an image of Jesus lying on a cross shaped piece of wood, flat on the ground, as an old man dying in his sleep). The point I found tough, and this is ultimately why I stopped going, is that the other Kids seems to already know all the answers and be friends with each other, and I was very much on the outside looking in.

I would just like to say at this point that I would still encourage any Sunday School Teacher,Kids worker or Parent, who has a child in their care, that doesn't seem to get the story of the Gospel at all and seems to be on the outside of the group, always slightly disruptive. Don't give up on them, it might be that that Kid is the one that will eventually totally get it. It took me time, but i now know Jesus as my lord and saviour, and they will too, just give them time and don't stop praying for them.

I kept going to Sunday school until I was 12, mostly because both my Mum and my Dad insisted that if I wanted to leave I had to be the one to tell the Sunday School leader, a lovely woman of God called Sandra. Sandra felt to me as a child very much like a kindly Grandmother than a Sunday school teacher, I’d grown up with her and really didn’t want to disappoint her. I knew if I told her I was leaving she would be disappointed or even try to convince me to stay, and I didn’t want that. So I stayed. But when I went to secondary school it really was starting to become a real chore to get up on a Sunday morning to go, and I wasn’t getting anything out of it, so I started making excuses and eventually my parents just gave up on asking me to go.

Secondary school was really difficult for me, up until then listening to my Dad’s advice on everything had been fine, he was logical and knew a heck of allot about most subjects. However at secondary school I really didn’t fit in, I used to carry my backpack on both shoulders (no self respecting teenager of my generation did this) I had a huge school bag, my coat was a sailing based waterproof with zip in fleece and I never wore sports gear such as Nike etc. As a result I was never really accepted into anyone friendship circle and used to wander round the school on my own a lot of the time. The few “friends” I did have in class used to bully me quite a bit. I remember one incident when I had a lunchtime pass to the library to do some homework and I forgot to use it, as did my “Friend”, On the walk home we were joking about how “Sad” the library was (I basically agreed with anything just to fit in) and then my “Friend” took his pass out and threatened to throw it down the drain. Me being the sheep that I was took mine out and threw mine down the drain thinking he had done so as well, he hadn’t I found out later. Because you couldn’t get a new library pass if you still had one to hand back and I was too embarrassed and ashamed of what I’d done to tell the librarian the truth, I did not step foot in the library outside lessons again all through secondary school, and I used to spend most lunchtimes there.

Eventually that “Friendship” group inevitable soured and my form tutor split us up. I was then put on  a table with three other guys who my tutor asked to keep an eye on me. That basically meant I used to hang around with them in most lessons, and though we haven’t seen each other in years, I still consider all three friends, even though I must have been really difficult to hang around with (I really wasn’t “cool” in the slightest). For a few years after this I sat with these guys in lessons, walked around school on my own most lunchtimes (Most because no one wanted to hang out with me).

Now it’s probably important, before I finish typing War and Peace 2, to explain what my belief system was at this point. I believed that every religion lead to God, that they were all essentially the same moral code and if you lived by that then you would have a good life and go to whatever heaven was for you, and that it would be a unique heaven tailored to you, basically like a reward for good behaviour during life. I didn’t really believe in absolutes, except where they affected other people.

Its also probably poignant to point out that my Dad had “Gotten me into sailing” when he gave me handme down wet suits and bought me an optimist dingy when I was 12 and way too big for it (No I wasn’t that impressed). I did enjoy long trips that the sailing club we were part of occasionally put on during Family week, because we went somewhere and therefore achieved something more than pointlessly pottering about (and in my case that was extremely slow pottering about with many forced capsizes just to entertain myself). So when my Mum came to me with the idea of going on a Christian Sailing Holiday she had heard of… But more on that Story next time.

Just because somebody is rude and clearly wrong, doesn't mean they can't have a point.

So, my first off Topic Blog post. Also my second Blog post, hmm I think my Goldfish style attention span may have developed A.D.D., no time for Ritalin though... I have a Blog post to write.

Before I start I want to make it absolutely clear that these are my own views and this is not an official communication from any of the people or bodies I talk about. This is just what my Blog is all about, one of my random thoughts!

Now I know that few people actually buy newspapers these days, and even fewer actually read them rather than just doing the cross word, or in my case look up the cartoons. However whilst I was at Soul Survivor (a massive Christian Youth Festival for those that don't know) there was an article printed in the Guardian (My paper of choice) by Tom Prosser which accused Soul Survivor "Manipulative" and "Damaging to the young people". He suggested that the sermons and the Christian music at these festivals were designed to whip young people up into a state where they would make decisions they would not normally make. He went on to attack prayer for physical healing and teaching on controversial subjects such as the occult. The way he portrayed Soul Survivor was that it was essentially a propaganda agency for a dangerous religious sect, hell bent on corrupting young people.

This is so totally different to the Soul Survivor I know (and I’ve been going to Soul Survivor events on and off since 2001) that it made me really angry to start with. At Soul Survivor it is made explicitly clear that we don't try to whip up the mood or create a spiritual experience but we simply wait on the Holy Spirit and see what he wants to do. Mike P (Sorry mike but I would only misspell your surname if I were to try and I think spell-check might correct it to pilchards or something) who heads up Soul Survivor is at pains to re-assure people that you don't need to scream, shake or fall over for the Spirit to meet with you, it’s just how some people react to his presence (I say his just because that proves the Holy Spirit is a person not a thing, not because I actually think he / she is bound by Gender). Mike will even try to cut the mood after worship sometimes with a joke of some sort if it seems like we are whipping up the mood ourselves. This is a long way off the "manipulative" methods that Tom describes. To be frank I think there is far more Manipulation that goes on a Reading Festival, or any other music festival for that matter, where young people are encouraged to embrace a culture of Drinking well beyond any safe (or even sane) limits, take drugs and sleep with anyone around. That is perhaps a tad unfair, having met some really lovely people whilst Street Pastoring at Reading Festival, such as the head of welfare who clearly cares deeply that everyone there has a good time and remains unharmed. But the over-riding theme is drink, drugs and over sexualisation. Yet this is accepted as harmless fun?

So what of his other accusation, Soul Survivor is damaging the young people by the content of the teaching or by praying for physical healing. Well in the modern world where everyone has a right to believe what they want, it seems if you teach anything that it could be taken to be controversial, but let’s take the more obviously controversial teachings such as that practicing the occult has spiritual consequences (Even physical in some cases) that we are not necessarily aware of, or that Homosexual practice is a sin. For a start I’ve not heard either of these subjects spoken about at the main meetings but only in some seminars which are optional, as in not everybody goes to them. It’s also worth noting that everything spoken on has a biblical basis to it, so it’s not the leaders coming up with this stuff but a 2000 year old book (Ok I know it was first written down in its current form about 100 years or so later but you get my meaning) and that same book is at pains to point out that we should treat everybody with love and respect just as Jesus did. No-one is condemned, though Soul Survivor won't necessarily approve of everything a person does, that person will still be loved and accepted regardless. And Soul Survivor doesn’t force anyone to agree with anything said at the festival, everyone is free to make up their own mind.

So what about Prayer for Physical healing? Well again it is Biblical, and I’ve been privileged to personally seen it happen once or twice. So people offer to pray for people, the worst that could happen is nothing, in which case that person hasn't lost anything. Soul Survivor encourages people if they think they have been healed to go and get it checked out by their doctor and to definitely NOT stop taking prescribed medication for it until a medical practicioner tells them to. So how is this damaging our young people?

However, having had a while to calm down and think about this, as well as talk about it with a few people, I’ve started to realise Tom actually does have a point. Not about Soul Survivor but I have been to other Christian festivals (Some of them as big if not bigger than Soul Survivor) where in the heat of the moment, and for well intentioned reasons, we as a group of people (Because that’s the way people on the outside will see it, not as individuals but as “Christians”) have been guilty of some of the things Tom accuses us of. I vividly remember being in a church in the past where I was pretty much pushed over by someone who vemently wanted to see a reaction in me after they had been praying for me so long. I've even heard people suggest that someone lacked faith because they were going to keep taking their medication after being prayed for! Whilst this was all well meant it really does a lot of damage to the Church as a whole, so I think the occasional article like Tom's is very much needed so that we are constantly challenged and vigilant, less we Bring the name of Jesus into disrepute.

For those of you that are interested Tom's article can be found Here and a far better and wiser rebuttal by Steve Clifford can be found Here

I think that’s enough of that for now, but I hope it gets you thinking, or at least makes some vague sense.

And yes I will eventually get round to telling you all what a Random Shackle is!

For now, I need sleep! I have to finish moving tomorrow.

Night...

Me, myself and those pesky random shackles

So, if you are actually reading this I can guess what you are thinking... Did I really just see a fluorescent yellow pigmy wallaby flying outside my window carrying a tin of baked beans and a can opener?

Well now that we have established that absolutely NONE of you were thinking that I’ll tell you just what I’m thinking and why I’ve started this blog.

Last January at New-Wine's Retreat to Advance conference I started to gain the impression that God wanted me to write out my testimony, all of it not just the bit where I became a Christian. Now being the good and obedient servant that I clearly am not, I completely forgot about it. For those of you wondering what on earth a testimony is, it’s your story, pretty much anything that has happened to you. Ever since then I’ve been getting divine reminders that I should be writing down my story. So I decided that rather than try to write the whole thing down in one go, get exhausted and give up, I’d write it in the form of blog posts here.

Since I have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to doing this sort of things (as proved by the length of time it’s taken me to get around to starting this off) The posts may not be in order and will be interspersed with other random thoughts on topics of the day.

So how about this for an opener... I was born.

More on that story later...