Testimonials 

On this page are the testimonials and accounts of Christians within the Church who have experienced the power of the Lord in one way or another. They wish to share to those out there...

Joshua Shek...

Mike Burrow...

I was born in Birkenhead to atheist parents on February 26th 1982. God and religion were never really discussed in my house. My Mum and Dad both had their reasons for not believing: Mum had been raised by a skeptical and arrogant father who seemed to still exert a strong influence over her even after he died (which was before I was born); Dad had been raised in a Christian household but never really saw or understood God and fell away. My mother later explained to me that they had me baptized as a baby only to prevent my Dad’s mother from complaining. “She’d never have forgiven us if we hadn’t.” My mum said.

I never really had any credible Christian role models when I was growing up, in fact the only Christians I knew were from my Grandparents’ generation. Because of this, I grew up with a slightly skewed perspective of what Christians were like based upon my encounters with them and with the way Christians were presented in the mainstream media. To me, Christians were judgmental, often hypocritical, conservative, moralistic and unforgiving.

Despite the fact that she didn’t believe, my mum never really said anything positive or negative about Christianity. I realized many years later that this was her way of letting me decide my own path and its something that I now appreciate. As a child I began to form my own beliefs. I knew that God existed, because He had helped me and had allowed me to be born to incredibly loving and supportive parents, and I would pray to Him sometimes. I would also pray in the name of Lord Jesus Christ sometimes and say that I loved Him. I never read the Bible, except for a select few Old Testament stories at school, and certainly never understood it; but I believed in God and I prayed and I was happy. I had a good childhood.

This situation stayed the same throughout my early teens. With every good exam result I gave thanks to God and carried on happily. I quite enjoyed school, really. I was quite studious, especially in my early years in secondary school (incidentally, I got 94% and top of the year in Year 8 for Religious Education!), and was always pretty keen and enthusiastic. Then out of nowhere, when I was 16, my life was turned upside down.

My dad was diagnosed with Lung Cancer, and began chemotherapy. All of a sudden, life didn’t seem fair. My Dad was 51, he was a good man and here was at the mercy of this horrendous disease. I was hurt and confused, and began to turn my back on God. “How could there be a God,” I reasoned, “if something like this could happen to us?” I was told that the disease was “very, very treatable” but it seemed that every time there was a glimmer of hope that Dad would be cured, the disease would be found to have spread somewhere else. Impossible though it was to contemplate, my Dad was dying.

I found it hard to convey to anyone what I was going through. I became withdrawn and detached from the world and felt bleak and very depressed. I can remember writing a story in English class about a tree house called “Kitoak Cottage.” In the story, I had built the tree house when I was young with another little boy called Kit, who had since died and whose death had deeply affected me. I can remember my teacher with tears in his eyes when he read the story and asking me if it was true. “No.” I told him, but what I really wanted to say was that Kit was my childhood. A childhood of hope and dreams and innocence. A childhood that was now dead.

I went through a metamorphosis over the next few years. I changed from being quiet and withdrawn to more outspoken and cynical towards the world. I started acting kind of rebelliously, I dressed differently, and I went out binge-drinking nearly every week. The fundamental difference was that I didn’t care what others thought of me. The world was a sham to me; I became more vocal in my opinions on society in general. Looking back, I was desperately trying to find an identity in a world that I felt was leaving me behind. My life had no purpose, no consequence and no hope. It was like living each day out in a wilderness.

All the pain that I was feeling was nothing to what my parents was going through. My Dad was in denial about even being ill, and was convinced that he was getting better. “I feel great” he’d say every day. His optimism was probably what kept him going, but simultaneously it was crushing to the rest of the family who were facing up to the horrible truth. My Mum felt it deeply, and would hold secret consultations with the doctors behind his back to find out what was really happening, as Dad would even lie to her about what they said to him.

Four years after he had been diagnosed with cancer, my Dad lost his bitter fight with the disease. The last few months had been the hardest of all, and I can remember thinking when it was all over was “Where do we go from here?” The next few months were a total blur, my life was a mess. I’d miss university lectures routinely, I lost all enthusiasm for work and I was just coasting through life. My life had fallen down a big hole and try as I might I couldn’t see a way out.

Then I got drunk one night and had one of those life-changing conversations. It was in the Portsmouth University Student Union, a place I derided and rarely visited. I was talking to two of my friends, Jon (who had just split up with his girlfriend) and Mike. The conversation turned very deep, and though I can’t really remember every word said (I was, after all, pretty drunk) I can remember Mike offering to take me to church sometime. He also said that he’d been praying for me and, I found out later, that he had been praying for me for some considerable time.

This had a profound effect on me. Mike was a Christian, but not like all those other Christians I’d known when I was growing up. He didn’t make any judgments about me, he just offered me the hand of grace. I felt something inside of me awakening – as if those prayers for me were softening my heart. I decided soon after that I would like to read the Bible.

When I started reading the Gospels, I was blown away. The message of Jesus was something quite different from what I had grown up to believe. I’d always thought He was someone who came down to punish humans for their sins, but conversely I discovered He came to forgive sins and to encourage forgiveness because God loved us. I read the words Jesus said with a pounding heart, and they spoke to my very soul. Jesus was the Son of God, I knew it. And I knew God did exist, he had awakened inside of me. I came back to God, and for the first time in my life felt that I had any sort of understanding of His love. My body was filled with the Holy Spirit, and optimism welled up inside of me. From the depths of despair the hand of grace that I was offered from Mike, and subsequently from my Father in Heaven was lifting me back up. I felt reborn. My hope that had died with my childhood was now resurrected and alive in Christ.

An important step along the new path that I had taken was to admit all my wrongdoings, to get everything out in the open and to be truly sorry for them. I admit that the first time I read Matthew, a part of me was terrified for the sins that I had committed in my former life. They played on my mind a great deal, and I apologized to God and to some of the people that I had hurt. I felt true forgiveness, and was able to feel a lot better. I was also able to forgive others for the pain that they had caused me. I felt very much in the ascendancy and felt that I was ready for the next step.

One day, at work, I nervously asked Mike if he remembered the conversation that we’d had a few weeks previously. “I’d really like to go to church with you sometime” I told him. The first time I went, I was amazed at how friendly everyone was. That evening, I truly felt at peace for the first time in a long time, and I couldn’t wait to go back.

And so here I am – really happy, and with a purpose to my life. I really hope that I’ll be able to communicate with non-Christians and just tell them my story of how I came to accept Christ. I’d most like to show them where I was before and where I am now, thanks to the wondrous love and forgiveness of my Father in Heaven. When I think of all that Jesus went through just so that he could save people like me, all I can do is give utmost thanks and praise and try to live my life in a way pleasing to God.