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Robert Little is a member of All Saints Church North
Wootton. He has two children and is the Head teacher of
a Church School. He writes:
 For
me the road to becoming an active Christian wasn’t
smooth, there were many ups and downs. Nor was it all
one way, in my experience faith retreats far faster than
it advances. And I certainly didn’t receive a flash of
divine inspiration that suddenly made me holier than
thou. For me, to paraphrase John Lennon, faith was
something that grew while I was busy making other plans.
I was born in Liverpool. In my early teens I fell in
with a youth group that used to meet on a Friday night.
We played a lot of pool and darts and secretly drank
cheap cider. We took holidays together and become a very
tight knit little group. It was months before I
realised the man who was in charge was a priest.
Gradually over time and with the encouragement of others
my commitment to the church grew. So that by the time I
was 18, just like all 18 year olds, I knew it all
and my faith was rock solid. Then I went to
university.
I studied Geology, a subject whose main stated objective
was disproving the existence of God. Everything that I
had up to that point unquestioningly believed was, quite
literally, put under the microscope and my belief
quietly dissolved. There were no Christians in the
Geology Department and I put my faith in science.
However, my Christian belief started to resurface and
grow again in my late 20’s, for two main reasons.
Firstly I didn’t much like the person that I was at the
time. Secondly, I was lucky enough to experience the
fellowship of the life of All Saints Church. People who
cared for and supported both myself and my family just
because we live here. People who genuinely loved us,
whether we came to church or not. There were lots of
long conversations and many, many bottles of red wine
were drunk. But slowly over time all of the “BIG”
questions that were preventing my faith from growing
became resolved and the way ahead was cleared for me.
Does that mean that my spiritual growth is all over
now? That I am a happy shiny new sandal-wearing
evangelist? The finished article? The perfect
Christian? No way! I am just me, trying to be the
best that I can be in all that I do. “Go out and spread
the Good News of the Lord.” said St Augustine, “Use
words only if you must”. Absolutely!
Robert Little |
