In the first of our 'How I Came to Faith', series, we hear from John Bentley, who speaks openly about how his Father died when he was only eleven years old. John remembers the transitional moment when he became a Christian at fifteen while painting a fence with someone.
The person John was painting with had just become a Christian at a traditional Evangelical Church and, as John recalls, "With the fervour of the new convert he wanted to explain everything and tell me about the Gospel". It was during those hours of painting, listening, questioning and hearing, that John realised that "This was a good thing," and that he would become a Christian too.
John, a father himself, speaks of how, "God the Father is something that I struggled with," relating this to how his own Father had left him, albeit, through no fault of his own. It was when John's children reached the age of eleven, the age he was when his father died, that he began to get an insight into what it means to be God.
You can view John's account of how he came to faith in the video below.
How did you come to faith? We'd like to hear your story
Please contact stephen.freeman@chester.anglican.org