How Did You Get There?

[Michlow]

Originally Posted by gloryseeker

What is interesting to me is that the majority of people on this forum are OP's, yet within that definition there is a wide variety of opinions.

I am curious if people would be interested in sharing their testimony of how they arrived at their current belief system?

• What were the biggest influences that formed your belief (could be an event, Bible College, etc)?
  
• Who (don't specifically put their name, Pastor, parents, etc would be good) made the biggest impact on your belief system.
  
• It would be especially interesting to hear about people who changed positions somewhere along the way. Why, what influenced it.

What I would hope, if people decide to participate in this post, is that people are not challenged for what got them where they are, but that it is just an exchange of personal testimonies.

I was raised in a mainly non-religious home. My parents were on-again off-again Christian Scientists, and I attended sunday school there periodicly up until about age 9. My Dad remarried when I was 6, and my Step-Mom and her entire family (who were all very close) were Catholics.

In middle school I often attended youth group with a friend of mine (some kind of non-denominational?). I accepted Jesus one day in my living room, with said friend. That pretty much stopped around age 13.

The summer between my first and second year of college, I was working in a gas station, when I was witnessed to, and invited to an Apostolic church. I attended a few times, and was baptized, but discontinued attendance when the new school year started.

When I was about 24, I started getting interested in the spiritual. I tried to read my Bible, but it was a KJV and didn't get much from it. So I ask a girl I knew was a Christian if she had any books I could read. I remember starting one of them early in the morning, while waiting to get ready for work. I got so into it that I called in sick to work so that I could finish it!

When I decided that I might want to go to church, I decided to go back to the UPC one that I had attended a few times years back. I eventually got the holy ghost, and then got pretty into the OP doctrine.

I was starting to question things, when I found the original FCF. It took me a few years, and a few pendulum swings before I decided to leave the Apostolic faith entirely. I actually ended up leaving conservative / fundamentalist Christianity entirely.

I had many issues due to some bad church situations, wrong teachings, and abuse of power. I was very angry, and had a very warped and distorted view of God. And got to the point where I was pretty much ready to chuck it all, and be glad of it.

Now, I am fairly liberal and lean towards progressive / emergent Christianity.
I feel like it is only now, that I have begun to get a true understanding of Jesus and faith.

The people who have really impacted me? Those who had traveled similar roads, they showed me so much love and patience, and didn't treat me like I was something broken that they needed to fix, but allowed me to meander my way to Jesus.

The writers whose books opened new realm of thought to me, that helped to repair the distorted thoughts that were so prevelant in my mind: Brian McClaren, Rob Bell, Gregory A. Boyd.