My Christian Journey

You might be interested in my personal Christian journey up to this point in my life.

I was born in Glasgow in the early 1970s. I am the eldest of four children (the other three children were all girls - my sisters Christine, Barbara and Sharon). From all accounts I was a sickly baby and at one point it was described as "touch and go" whether I would survive. But survive I did, and though my baptism was delayed because I was in hospital so long, I was baptised in the Church of Scotland on 3rd September 1972.

When we moved to a new house in 1978 we began to attend another Church of Scotland congregation nearer our home in Bridgeton. It is called by the very un-presbyterian name of Bridgeton St Francis-in-the-East Church, which always seems to raise Protestant eyebrows when the name is first mentioned!

During my childhood years we regularly attended church and I went to Sunday school and the Boys' Brigade. However, unlike most children nowadays, from about the age of twelve I wanted to stay in church to hear the sermon, instead of going out to Sunday school.

I went to secondary school in 1984 and at this time a significant change occurred at church as well with the arrival of a new minister, one of the younger generation of evangelical ministers, from whom we started to hear expository preaching for the first time.

As a young teenager in the religiously divided East End of Glasgow, I started to think about the differences between Catholics and Protestants at a religious level. But I had never consciously believed in Jesus Christ, nor really understood the gospel properly though I had probably heard it many times.

The turning point came at a church jumble sale of all things in December 1987. On the second-hand book stall there were three little books, which obviously dated from the Second World War. One was called The Soldier's Guide, one was called The Sailor's Guide, and one was called The Airman's Guide. Here are pictures of the book covers that caught my eye initially:

I remember thinking that they would be something to do with training servicemen for the war and so I bought the three little books for about 20p. Later, when I got home, to my dismay I discovered that the books had nothing to do with teaching new recruits how to assemble a rifle or navigate a destroyer. They were Christian evangelistic booklets written for servicemen during the war! However I started to read them anyway, and at length I came to a presentation of the gospel called "Man's Questions and God's Answers" by Dr. Gordon MacLennan. (I've since learned that Dr MacLennan was a conservative Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia who had been at the forefront of attempts to keep the Presbyterian Church of the United States true to the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith in the 1920s - one day in heaven I hope to shake his hand).

As I began to read "Man's Questions and God's Answers" I became aware that the words of Scripture and the gospel presentation were really challenging me and encouraging me to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in a way I had never felt before. I still think it is one of the best gospel presentations I have ever read - and certainly the most important for me personally! The tract ends with these words:

"God has answered all the questions you can ask. How will you answer Him? What will you do with Jesus, which called Christ? Will you say - Here and now I accept Him as my own and only Saviour?" The night I read those questions, I said "Yes, Lord, I believe."

Since then I have grown in the faith through reading many good books, hearing many good sermons and attending many good Bible studies. Most of all though I have grown with the help of the Holy Spirit and prayer as I have read the God's precious word, the Bible.

In due course as my faith grew, on the 28th October 1990 I was admitted to full communicant membership of the church by public profession of faith.

This was the same month I began my studies at the University of Glasgow. I finished University in 1995 having received my LL.B. (Hons) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice. However, I have never practised as a solicitor. Instead I went on to work in the Civil Service and then in the head office of CWS Retail before taking a job as a Translation Project Manager. I was later promoted to Quality Manager in the same company.

I was soon seeking to serve God in as many ways in the local congregation, which included serving on the Congregational Board and then later as a ruling elder on the Kirk Session.

In February 2008 I started to go out with a beautiful young lady, Laura, who would become my wife in 2009. When we got married, we both decided to start going to a new church together and since September 2009 we have been attending Sandyford Henderson Memorial Church in Glasghow (becoming members there in March 2010). Our son was born early in 2012 and baptised later that year.

We continue to worship and seek to serve God, through my blogging, on a Facebook page, and in my local church. 

There have been ups and downs in my life as a Christian, but I have never regretted saying "Yes" to Christ when I heard his voice in a tract written by an American minister, printed in a little disposable booklet published in 1940 for the troops, that turned up in a jumble sale in 1987 in Glasgow and was bought by someone who totally misunderstood what the book was going to be about. Surely it can never have been easier for any Christian to accept that God really does "work all things according to the counsel of his own will" (Ephesians 1:11) than it was for me.