Louis
A journey from
"Church-ianity"
to Christianity
Louis is a multimedia education and training consultant. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the London Business School. For the last 20 years he has been involved in distance learning and computer-based assessment. His work has taken him far afield. He has worked in India, Mexico and most countries of the European Union. In recent years he played a key role in the introduction of vocational qualifications into a number of public and private occupational sectors, including the Police, the UK and Northern Ireland Prison Services, the Armed Forces and financial services. Currently he manages the London division of the UK's largest private provider of IT qualifications. He is married to Victoria who is a professional counsellor. Louis and Victoria live in London and have four daughters, all in their early twenties.
How and when were you introduced to Jesus?
I grew up in Mexico and used to accompany my mother to mass on Sundays. My father and all the other members of my family were non-churchgoers. As a young adult I continued attending church. I felt at home amid the sounds, the smells and even the taste, of the church.
It took me years to realise that, while I knew something about religion, I did not know God. I knew about Christ (in those days I never called him Jesus) but I did not have a relationship with him. The Holy Spirit (whom I called The Holy Ghost) I pictured as some sort of "Super Dove" to whom I found it impossible to connect at all.
My first encounter with "born again" Christians was not a happy one. I was invited to a breakfast meeting at a classy hotel sponsored by a group called "Full Gospel Businessmen". The food was fine but what followed made me cringe. A group of men who had looked perfectly normal over their toast and marmalade suddenly began singing and bellowing loudly in a mixture of English and "strange tongues" while leaping up and down and waving their arms in the air. The resulting cacophony struck me as insane and even dishonouring to God.
It would be several more years before I would again venture beyond safe and predictable confines of the church I knew. By this time I was living in England, married and father of a newly-born daughter. One day my wife Victoria and I were invited to join something called a "Life in the Spirit" Seminar. This was a 12-week course that explained the fundamentals of the Christian faith and (though I did not know this at the outset) offered participants an opportunity to meet Jesus as Lord, experience the work of the Holy Spirit and to make a personal commitment to Christ.
My wife and I, with our new baby in a carry cot, attended the entire 12-week programme. Both of us, in different ways, experienced "conversion" - a turning away from sin and a turning to Jesus as personal Lord and Saviour. It's the most important thing that has ever happened to us. It turned us from Sunday churchgoers into a couple who would from then on seek to involve God in every part of our lives.
What difference does knowing Jesus make?
It hasn't been plain sailing. Money, sex and power are seductive alternatives to God-at-the-Centre-of-Everything. We struggle with all the normal temptations and we often fail to live up to the standards set by Jesus for his followers. Nonetheless, we have overcome many obstacles that would have been insurmountable without the presence and power of God in our lives. We treat every good thing in our lives as a "gift" and express our gratitude for what God has done for us by giving a proportion of our time, talent and resources to Christian service in our church and to voluntary organisations.
What advice would you give to others looking for faith?
If I were setting out on a journey to faith, and had found this website, I would seek out a church that is running an Alpha Course. There is no better introduction to the Christian faith. (The Alpha course operates all over the world. Click this link to find an Alpha Course near you).
I would also aim to find and read an "easy" book that explains the Christian faith. Two of the best are Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and Basic Christianity by John Stott.
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