John is married with 5 children and works in the Primary Care Trust in Knowsley
John's story -
When I was younger my life revolved around attending Cubs and then the Scouts, playing football, attending youth club and being with mates. Church was cold and boring and didn’t make sense to me. All that fancy language!
Some time later in 1974 someone came to work in the church with the youth and he had a profound effect on me. He was different to the other Christians I’d met, I could really see Jesus in him and I realised I was missing something in my life.
He invited me to the Keswick Convention which was a Christian gathering where the well known evangelist Billy Graham was speaking. I went ‘on spec’ but after knocking on B & B's all day, I couldn’t find a place to stay. There was a very large crowd in Keswick that day with lots of people milling around as it was the first day that Billy Graham was going to speak. All the B & B’s were full and I had given up hope of finding somewhere to stay so I decided to head back home to Liverpool.
Just then a hand came on my shoulder and a man said ‘haven’t you got anywhere to stay’? I said I hadn’t and he told me someone had dropped out of his party, leaving room in their B & B for another person. I went to the meetings all week, sang some great songs and listened to some inspiring words.
On the last night of the meetings I decided not go to the Billy Graham meeting but went instead to another. What the speaker said really had an impact me. I decided that what he was saying about Jesus and becoming a Christian was true. There was something in this man that I had recognised in the youth worker who had come to the church at home. They both knew Jesus. I wanted to know him too, so I chose to follow him at the meeting and my life has never been the same since!
When I look back to the day in Keswick I don’t think it was a coincidence that I couldn’t get into a B & B, and I don’t believe it was chance the I was standing near to that particular person in a huge crowd when I was feeling so alone. It wasn’t fate that led that man to put his hand on my shoulder and ask me that question. It wasn’t an accident that someone had dropped out of his party and couldn’t take their place the B & B.
I didn’t have an appointment with Billy Graham that night, but God arranged the circumstances with me because he had an appointment with me at another meeting.
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