Baptism

I was planning on writing this later on but with the baptisms service at LCC coming up in about 3 weeks I thought I may as well right it now. I got baptised on April the 1st, and I got baptised after midday :). This is my story as to why I got baptised. I'd been a christian all my life, but when I was 14 and put in hospital I decided that he wouldn't of allowed this to happen and so I found refuge in cricket. As people know cricket is a summer sport so when that finished I found myself back at church again. The months after that were great getting back in touch with God and praying and reading the bible but however this all stopped again when the following season came around. After that season I went back to church yet again and found the same experience that I had before, only this time I got more involved. I was now on the PA sound team. Doing that was great, I 've always worshipped more to God through music so being involved in that boast my relationship with him. Soon after I was asked to help out with another sound system was a group of christian singers so of course I said yes. About a year after doing this sound system for this group of christian singers they asked me to join and play my guitar for them. I was over the moon to be playing christian music in a christian band. The best thing about this was it didn't get interrupted by cricket, all practices were at night and so were the gigs so I could continue doing the two things I enjoyed the most. Praising god and playing cricket.

Unfortanatly the group decided to go there own separate ways  about a year after I joined. but at least I still had my church sound system to work on. I continued going to church and doing the sound system. I then had a massive choice soon after, join the worship band or continue playing cricket. The best thing I could think of was putting off the music band until after the season. The season came and went and during that time I decided to apply for a place at university for some unknown reason to me I had said previously that I didnt want to go and that the police force was my calling. September drew upon me quickly and with my university place in the balance te worship leader once again asked me to join the band after he'd seen me in a charity concert. Once again another hard decision faced me. I decided I needed to carefully think about it with in the next week. The next week had come and gone and before I knew it I was on my way to university. My place was comfirmed and so the place in the band had to wait.

When I came up to university I found a bible in my room, I decided I wasn't going to take mine as there was unexplained happenings in my life that I needed to know before I picked it up again. I dedicated a song to my grandad when he departed us and he seemed to watching down on me, when ever I got angry or annoyed his song would come on and even to this day I still look up at the sky and say "thanks grandad". He seemed to be looking down on me and my every move. I then picked up the bible again I decided that I had to find a church but it felt like i was in the middle of nowhere so I listened to music and prayed more. When second year came I joined the Christian Union with my mate and 4 days later was on my way to a church. I had this plan to go to a different church for 4 or 5 weeks to see what other churches were like. I turned up on my first week and i never looked back.

I continued going to the same church and made a lot of close friends. Towards Christmas I had felt something that I'd never felt at church before, it felt like Christ was living inside me. Every word of the gospel and songs seemed to reach out and touch me and so over the Christmas period I had a long hard think about baptism. I returned after Christmas to the church once again and the same thing happened, God was with me and I knew then I had to get baptised. The build up to my baptism became very hard with events in my life and even on trips away it seemed to follow me everywhere. I remember this one trip away where everyone prayed for the problem that had happened and the spirit of the lord went through me and stayed deep inside of me but i was so touched to see so many people willing to pray for me. That was I think the most testing time of my life, it confirmed to me that I wanted to become totally Christ centred.

When the ceremony arrived on the baptism day, I remember the drive up in the lovely sunshine. Cruising along the motorway dodging the road works and other cars until we finally arrived at church. I remember talking to someone about whether I was going to write something down to read out on stage but I decided to go off the top of my head. Which looking back was a mistake. I had a check list in my head of who I wanted to say thanks too but when it came to it I could only remember a few of them, although I did thanks the closest to me. We got in to the pool to be baptised and just before the questions came the person baptising me said to shout my answer out. So on the first one I did, he spoke to me again and said the same thing, shout it out and yet again I did. On the third occasion he said go for it so at the top of my voice and in my best Churchill impression I answered with "OH YES" I'm pretty sure the crowd will remember the day getting them smiling with every answer I gave.