My brief story..Peter Worthington

**Peter is married to Meg and they have two grown-up children, Rachel and Calvin who are both committed Christians in the service of the Lord. (Our other son Wesley went to be with the Lord in 1984 aged seven)

I am sometimes amazed at people brought up in Christian families, who seem to be "envious" that they have not had a dramatic change in life style, such as mine. I can only tell them that surely nothing could be so wonderful as to be "kept" from sin.

As a child I attended the Sunday school of my local parish church, and learned the Creed and some Bible stories. I can never recall being challenged about knowing Jesus personally and I certainly found the services very boring. In fact I believed there seemed to be an elite group who knew when to stand, sit or pray and when to speak. At eleven or twelve years old I dropped away from any church attendance, which did not disappoint the church or my family who did not attend anyway.

Through my High School years I strongly argued the cause of atheism and became a centre of dissention in the Religious Education classes. During this time I was under-age drinking and partying, ruining lives with my promiscuity. After passing a few GCE O levels I left school quickly, believing that having money to spend would give me more satisfaction than Further Education. For some years I gambled, drank, womanized, cursed and lived as if there were no God and no judgment.

In 1969, I was nineteen, I was working for a couple that I discovered were "born again" Christians. For some months they must have prayed for me, and tried to win me. In October I finally agreed to go with them to a crusade, but I took along my two elder brothers for security! As the evangelist spoke, it went straight to my heart, and at the appeal I responded and found Christ. Two days later I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Lord began to give me preaching opportunities in my local church, a Pentecostal church and I was thrilled to see conversions! I worked in Children's work and with two church pioneer meetings.