For my part (at 89) "I've been everywhere man" and been a lot of things.
I've never had a 'road to Damascus experience' but feel sure that I have never not believed in God in a very real way.
Nevertheless I have to confess that I first got into 'evangelical fundamentalism' at around 12-13 years of age simply by joining the little suburban Chapel opposite our house, for the purpose of getting closer to Jean, who had been my childhood sweetheart since the age of 10.
I joined the chapel's young men's group and everything grew from that.
We had such a thriving 'young people's group' that we completely filled two rows of 'pews' at adult services, morning and evenings every Sunday, every Tuesday evening for prayer, every Thursday for Bible Study, and every Saturday evening at the Young People's Fellowship held at the much larger City Chapel from which ours had sprung.
Otherwise we always did everything together, including holidays at Christin guest houses and camp fellowship.
Those were the most fantastic years of my life, culminating in my marriage to Jean at the age of 23.
A few years later everything changed when our Chapel suddenly imploded in fierce three party controversy over who should succeed its aging Pastor.
I found myself unable to take sides and became so disillusioned that I withdrew completely and threw myself into a long study of how Christianity began and developed through to ages up to the time of my beloved Chapels implosion.
Everything that I now am derives from my ever developing convictions, based on complete rejection of preconception and the search for real 'truth' which I became more and more convinced lays within an unbiased study of Matthew chapter 13.
I've never had a 'road to Damascus experience' but feel sure that I have never not believed in God in a very real way.
Nevertheless I have to confess that I first got into 'evangelical fundamentalism' at around 12-13 years of age simply by joining the little suburban Chapel opposite our house, for the purpose of getting closer to Jean, who had been my childhood sweetheart since the age of 10.
I joined the chapel's young men's group and everything grew from that.
We had such a thriving 'young people's group' that we completely filled two rows of 'pews' at adult services, morning and evenings every Sunday, every Tuesday evening for prayer, every Thursday for Bible Study, and every Saturday evening at the Young People's Fellowship held at the much larger City Chapel from which ours had sprung.
Otherwise we always did everything together, including holidays at Christin guest houses and camp fellowship.
Those were the most fantastic years of my life, culminating in my marriage to Jean at the age of 23.
A few years later everything changed when our Chapel suddenly imploded in fierce three party controversy over who should succeed its aging Pastor.
I found myself unable to take sides and became so disillusioned that I withdrew completely and threw myself into a long study of how Christianity began and developed through to ages up to the time of my beloved Chapels implosion.
Everything that I now am derives from my ever developing convictions, based on complete rejection of preconception and the search for real 'truth' which I became more and more convinced lays within an unbiased study of Matthew chapter 13.
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