Quote (ADTR21 @ May 1 2011 04:59pm)
I wish this subforum had the polling system, but I guess just straight up answers are good enough
1) you chose to be christian by yourself
2)you were brought up and raised as a christian
I figured these would be the 2 most common choices, I'm just trying to put things in perspective for myself:)
Thanks for looking!
My personal testimony has a little bit of both incorporated.
From the age of 5, I attended Sunday school quite regularly with my grandparents, who were going to church. For most of their lives, however, they did not go to church. My grandfather was raised in a Christian home and his father was a minister for the Assemblies of God. At age 14 he moved out and started his own life. He did not come back Christianity until he and my grandmother were both 40 years old.
I lived with my mother, who was not religious in any way, who regularly smoked cigarettes and weed in front of me and my little brother. So, in a sense, I was "raised" in the church, if going to Sunday school as often as my mother would allow me to counts.
At age 10 I decided to make a confession of my faith. I repented and was baptized that summer.
By this time I had moved to Washington to live with my father and stepmother, both of whom were/are nonreligious. My father has sought after truth in his life before, but due to religious intolerance, has greatly been hurt by professing "Christians" and other religious people. As a result, I never attended church while I was living in Washington, but would only attend church with my grandparents when I would visit them every summer.
In my early teens, I began to question Christianity, because I wanted to know if what my grandparents had been trying to teach me was really correct. I wanted to confirm that I could believe in Christ rationally and really accept the Bible. At age 14, I began doing some serious soul-searching and reading on Christian Apologetics. I got my hands on Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ," and his other works. From there, I was convinced. By this time I was 15. I found a church to attend and since then I have been going to church even though both of my parents do not.
Today I am a university student at the University of Washington in Seattle, studying history and philosophy. I read Christian Apologetics regularly.
That is my story.
