My Testimony

For the first twenty-four years of my life, I lived in England. We were the stereotypical working class family: two children, one cat, one dog, and one car. Although I possessed a nicely illustrated Children's Bible (which I still remember to this day), religion was almost never mentioned in my childhood house. The only time we went to church was for weddings and funerals. I had a relatively unremarkable childhood, getting into the usual trouble that teenage boys get into, doing the usual things that young college men do, but fortunate to come out of it all with a BA degree in Business Studies and a sense that there was something out of the ordinary in store for me.

Seven days after completing my final exam, I was on my way to New York for the biggest, and most important, trip of my life. Over the next few years, I made several trips to the USA, eventually settling permanently in 1988. Over the next decade, my comedy career blossomed - in sharp contrast to the trail of failed relationships left in its wake. In September 1999, I met the woman who was to take my life in a totally unforeseen direction. When I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2004, my new wife and I attended her family church on a sporadic basis. It was a dying church and, within a few years, it closed its doors and we migrated to a church across the road. Initially, I attended fairly regularly out of family obligation. Then, as time went by, my appearances slowed to a trickle (even as my wife continued to go) and eventually stopped altogether. Although I liked the preacher personally, I got absolutely nothing out of the services. I hated getting up, showering, dressing up, and then having to sit on a wooden bench for an hour trying my best not to fall asleep. I was pleased to be out of it. Eventually, my wife stopped going too.

Several years later in 2011, my wife's cousin-in-law invited her to attend Daystar church. I had heard about it from one of my neighbors, but never gave it much thought. After the first service, my wife came home and raved about it. She said I "might" like it. The preacher was young and the music was great, she said. "Plus," she added enthusiastically, "you don't have to dress up!" Intrigued, I attended the very next week. On that day, it was raining and, as we pulled into a "guest/visitor" parking spot, a gentleman with an umbrella appeared at our door and escorted us – safe and dry – into the church. We were greeted warmly and offered tea or coffee prior to the service. The auditorium was not like any church I had ever seen; the music was provided by a five piece band belting out Christian tunes, and the preacher wore jeans and bowling shoes. I immediately felt at ease. Pastor Allen Holmes delivered an engaging 40 minute sermon. I was hooked.

From that day, I became a regular attendee at Daystar Church. Although I enjoyed the sermons, I often found myself a little confused. With almost no Bible knowledge to fall back on (aside from the few stories I remembered from my Children's Bible), I felt I was "missing out" on some of the messages. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't make the leap from non-believer to believer without something "concrete" to latch on to. Looking for that stepping stone, I settled on the question: "Is there a God?" Obviously, no one can prove that there is – that's where the faith comes in. I could, however, look into Creation, and - if that looked to be true - then someone had to have "created", and that someone had to be God. Simultaneously, I participated in the "Starting Point" program – which gave me a grounding in Bible knowledge. Also, I began to serve as a volunteer at the church (a member of "The A Team") and graduated from "Growth Track" – a course designed to further acquaint me with Daystar's ambitions and targets. I jumped into several small groups, including the Men's' Fraternity program, and discovered a whole new way of relating to other people and looking at the world. At The A Team Christmas party in 2011, (twenty six years after my debut performance at a stag party at a rugby club) I did my first ever stand up show in front of a church audience: 250 people – most of whom knew me and knew what I did, but had no idea what I would say.

Thankfully, it came off without a hitch. It hit me that God had given me this gift and now I had to go out and find out how I could use it to grow The Kingdom. I looked back on my life and recognized how certain incidents – sometimes apparently insignificant – had put me on a path. It had been a long, long road, and there was still much to travel. But now, I had a guide and had to trust that, in time, my direction would be revealed to me. Even though my research into Creation and Evolution had long since convinced me of God's existence, I continued to read voraciously on the subject and, in October 2012, I delivered a 40 minute presentation on Evolution to Daystar's Youth Group. It was initially a little strange to be on stage and not making people laugh, but my passion for the topic came through, and The Lord gave me the right words to get my message across. That very evening, as I had my quiet time up in our spare bedroom, inspiration arrived, and I quickly sketched out the next few steps in the journey for me. I realized that I had a purpose, and the skills to accomplish it. Against the backdrop of the secular school system – which continually teaches Evolution as "fact" – I had the opportunity to bolster peoples (especially young peoples) faith in Creation and give them the ammunition to refute anyone who accuses us of being an accident of nature – a purposeless organism. With the youth pastor's assistance, I took my message to other youth groups, and continue in that quest today. God had created me to spread the word that he had created you.