Yatton Methodist Church
A family friendly church

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I was born in Bristol, educated in Bristol, worked in Bristol, married in Bristol and moved to Yatton in 1990. Nothing extraordinary or remarkable had ever happened to me (apart from my marriage and the birth of my daughter).

I’ve no hard luck story to tell, I’ve never been to prison, taken drugs, suffered persecution, been abused or been in the depths of total despair. I see myself as a really ordinary guy, living a very ordinary sort of life. So what’s the story?

I was brought up to go to church, going every Sunday until the age of 14. I started again after an absence of 31 years, mainly to take my daughter to Sunday school. I always sort of believed in God and Jesus (especially when I wanted something!), but being totally honest I was never sure if I believed because I believed for myself, or if I believed because I had been taught to, both at school and at home.

Even when I started  going to church again 16 years ago, I still wasn’t really sure about my beliefs. There were and always had been doubts, always uncertainty - something missing. I heard the words and tried to live a good (but ordinary) life, but found it difficult to believe. That was until Saturday 10th November 2007.

Some weeks before this I decided to join an Alpha Course being run by Yatton Methodist Church (I’d seen the ads on previous occasions and been invited to join but never had). I decided that if my doubts, uncertainty and that missing something didn’t receive answers or an explanation, then I was no worse off than I was before. So I joined.

During the Alpha course we visited St Peters in Weston Super Mare and what happened there to an ordinary guy, was extraordinary and remarkable and very real. During a period of quiet I began to feel a warmth inside me which filled the whole of me, and gave me feelings of extreme well being, total contentment, and absolute certainty that I was filled with the Holy Spirit - all my doubts and uncertainty disappeared and now there was nothing missing!

Being an ordinary sort of guy I spent the next hour or so analysing what had happened! Was it the church environment, simply my desire to find that missing something, my mood on the day? – No - an ordinary person, possibly just like you, had received the Holy Spirit and embarked on a new clearer chapter in his life, knowing with absolute certainty that God exists, God lives and that he can be found. Thank God!