The story of how I met Jesus really goes back to the story of how my parents met Jesus.
Neither of my parents grew up in Christian families, they never went to church or had any close family members who were Christians. My dad became a Christian through a whole bunch of different situations; one of them being that some Jehovah’s Witnesses once turned up at his house to try and convert him. My dad, not being a Christian but wanting to be able to argue with them, essentially then picked up a Bible and started reading it just so that the next time they came to the house he could pick holes in their argument! Through reading the Bible and chatting to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, he realised that they’d misinterpreted aspects of the Bible and that what they were saying didn’t really match up with what he was reading; this was one of the first steps on my dad’s faith journey, but it was soon followed by more steps.
One of these steps came when my dad went for a catch up with some old college mates at a pub; one of them was a Christian, who hadn’t particularly wanted to go out that night, but who’d suddenly felt a prompting that he should go. During the evening, he and my dad started talking about Christianity and faith, which led to this friend saying to my dad at the end of the night, ‘look Steve if you want to know more give me a call sometime.’ My dad didn’t take him up on the offer initially, but 6 months later he finally rang him and that’s when my dad started to get really interested in the Christian faith; a short time later he fully gave his life to Jesus.
What really captures me about that story is the obedience of dad’s college friend, who took seriously the prompting of the Holy Spirit to go to the pub that night and was open to God using him.
That simple act of obedience from his friend led to my dad becoming a Christian, which led to him meeting my mum and to them working together to bring up four children in the Christian faith. This, in time, led to all my siblings giving their lives to Jesus and when I was twelve it led to me giving my life to Jesus too. There are of course many other factors that led to me and my siblings saying ‘yes’ to Jesus, but I love the thought that one simple act of obedience had a massive ripple effect in the kingdom of God.
Now I get the privilege of partnering with God in the work of The School of Evangelism, training up others in how to share their faith and creating even more ripple effects in the Kingdom of God – just amazing!
Written by Joe Barret
Joe Barrett works at The Message Trust as the course leader for our Message School of Evangelism – our yearlong training scheme which seeks to equip the students with boldness to share the good news of Jesus in every opportunity. Before taking this position, he was the drummer for the band Brightline. Joe lives in Stockport with his with wonderful wife Ruth.
