‘I thought Christians were fooling themselves, until I came out of that baptismal water’

As I celebrate my 70th birthday, I have been reflecting on the 33 years I have been a Christian - particularly my beginnings, which were, if not unique, at least unusual.

They involved no prior belief or repentance, no sermons or scriptures. I can point to a definite day and time but the story began a year or so earlier. On a beautiful summer’s day in the Lake District, my then wife announced she was leaving me for my best friend and my world began to collapse around me. Over the coming months, I lost not only them, but my job, my home and all my savings and I found myself sleeping on the couch of my mother’s retirement apartment.    

His relentless persistence

Before leaving my employers, I had been invited to church by an elderly couple I met through work. Nobody had ever asked me to church before. I’d lived happily for 37 years without that happening and the invitation was to a Pentecostalal church too, definitely more worrying! The few times I had been to church, it had been to a Church of England church, huge, cold, and menacing - like the distant God I associated with Christianity. I graciously accepted the couple’s invitation but with no intention of ever going. I come from a long line of atheists. 

A few weeks later, a neighbour of my mother’s invited me to come to his church - the same Pentecostal church the couple attended. I briefly puzzled over this coincidence and gave him a vague answer. A month or so on, I went to see a former employer, to see if she had any part-time work for me. Sadly she hadn’t but she was anxious to tell me her exciting news. She had become a Christian! Would I like to go to church with her sometime? I already knew its name. What was going on? I was aware that powers beyond my comprehension were beckoning me to go there. I decided to risk it. 

Services were held twice on Sunday in a small hall in the annex of a school. My first impressions of the experience were of a strange but warm and friendly group of people, muttering in a weird language and raising their hands in the air. Despite my reservations, I decided to stay and enjoyed the company of these new friends. I didn’t have to share their beliefs after all. 

My weakened resistance

It was a bad time for a part-qualified accountant like me to be out of work and I engaged the services of an agency with nationwide coverage. Within the same week, they found two jobs I felt were perfect for me, amazingly both in the small seaside town of Aberystwyth in Wales. I felt a strong sense of the workings of fate and was not unduly surprised to be offered both positions. I didn’t understand what was happening but I had little in the way of choice and started to make arrangements to move down to Wales. My church attendance had continued but I had no plans to commit myself to something I couldn’t believe or accept. Perhaps, I thought, those around me were fooling themselves. I wasn’t sure. But they were wonderful people.  

I was tipped back into the water, a bewildered but confirmed and cynical atheist

A week before my move, I was in the morning service when the pastor announced there would be a baptismal service that evening in the school swimming pool next door. One girl was to be baptised, and the pastor wondered if anyone else desired to join her. As my eyes wandered around the room to see who would respond, my left hand went up in the air on its own accord. I hastily pulled it down but the pastor had seen me and came over to talk.

I told him that I didn’t want to be baptised and that I didn’t believe anything I’d heard in church. But he asked me to trust him that it was the right thing to do and wouldn’t accept my repeated “no” for an answer. How long we talked, I don’t know but it was clear those around me wanted me to say “yes”. And, in a moment of weakness, I agreed, solely to please everyone. It wouldn’t do me any harm after all and didn’t mean anything to me. I sat in a daze while he explained how the service would go, suddenly feeling pulled along by forces outside of my control.

After the evening service, perhaps 20 people gathered next to the swimming pool, including the girl and me. The pastor asked me to say a few words about why I was there, perhaps to repent. I don’t remember being told beforehand that I had to speak. I was there to please the congregation not to make any kind of commitment. I can’t remember what I said but, in hindsight, I believe the Spirit led me and words came out, despite myself and the confusion I found myself in. What was I doing here?

A renewed heart

I was led by two of the elders down into the centre of the large pool thinking that, of all the stupid things I’d done in my life, this was by far the worst. But it was clear from the size of the two elders that there would be no going back! As I held my nose, I was tipped back into the water, a bewildered but confirmed and cynical atheist.

Despite my reservations, I decided to stay and enjoyed the company of these new friends. I didn’t have to share their beliefs after all

But when I came up out of the water, everything had changed! I knew God as my heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. I was filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. As the people sang, I thought I heard the additional pure voices of a heavenly choir in the roof of the pool and experienced an intense feeling of the presence and love of God. As the girl was led into the pool I stood on the side and wept for no reason that I can remember; maybe they were just tears of joy and relief.  

If I was coming to faith relatively later in life, then God didn’t waste any more time and, a week later, I travelled down to Aberystwyth where I joined a large and wonderful Anglican Church that taught me all I needed to know as a new believer. Four years later, God moved me to Vancouver, Canada to study at a theological college under JI Packer and Eugene Peterson among others. But my conversion experience remains fresh in my memory and has, in many ways, shaped my faith and my relationship with God over the last 33 years. I remain deeply thankful for the way God chose to save me.