Andy's story

“I’ve been coming to church on and off for several years, but in the last two or three years I’ve started to come more regularly. The only thing I found difficult was that, having never been a serious church goer earlier in my life, I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on in church and, more importantly, hadn’t ever thought about what I did or did not believe in terms of my ‘faith’.

“The course is a way to find out about these things. It’s a bit like Ronseal really - it does exactly what it says on the tin! We simply explored everything about our Christian beliefs. We talked about what our faith meant to us, and discussed our understanding of God, the story of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the church and the sacraments, the bible and lots of other stuff. Most importantly, it gave the participants an opportunity to discuss these things with each other and to better understand it. Oh, and there were great puddings before each class!
It wasn’t all plain sailing though. I spent ages grappling with things like the resurrection, because I was determined not to just go along with it if I didn’t really believe it. But in many ways, that was part of the fun and the challenge. Everything fell into place for me during that period. Toward the end of the course, a number of us decided we wanted to be confirmed and that happened a few months ago at St Alphege on Ascension Day. It was a very special occasion.
I’d encourage you to try it out. I think you might surprise yourselves: newcomers to the Church might make an amazing discovery in life; and more seasoned churchgoers might learn new things and re-energise their faith. And everyone gets to enjoy the puddings!

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