My Story

To start off... I was raised in a Christian environment. The majority of my family are Baptist Christians, and those were the tenants I was raised with.

I went to Christian Bible schools. Living with my aunt and grandparents off and on, I went to church every week. At times I went to church two times on Sunday and at least a bible study or youth event in the middle of the week.

The fear of hell was instilled into me from the get go. Because of this I sincerely wanted a relationship with Jesus and as I was told he was my Savior. All I had to do was repent and ask him into my heart to be saved from this.

At age 11 I made the decision to get baptized. I remember the day vividly. I was living with my aunt and in her church there was a call to the pulpit. People would go up and ask Jesus into their heart, ask for forgiveness, or just silently prey. I never had the courage to go up there but I understood through all the teaching and school that if I truly believed and was sincere that Jesus would save my soul, all I had to do was ask. I went up to the steps of the pulpit, got on my knees and prayed to Jesus to forgive my sins and I asked him into my heart. Later that night I told my aunt that I would like to be baptized and I believe it was the next week I was fully submerged.

Honestly I didn't feel any different, but I did feel a weight off my shoulders. I was saved! Now I won't go to hell. The problem was I wasn't the best kid. I knew I was a sinner, Jesus was supposed to have washed all my sins and any future sins so long as I repented. I repented and prayed all the time. I asked Jesus into my heart at least 2-3 times a month. I wasn't sure if silently he heard me, so I asked out loud. Wasn't sure if I did something bad Jesus would reject me so I would ask for forgiveness and ask him again.

Through my entire life I had spurts of spirituality. So many bad things happened around my life during high school, I felt rejected and unworthy of being saved. Spirituality was brought back briefly when I went back to live with my aunt. I Attended a Christian school and went to church at least twice a week. After moving back home things were pretty much the same if not worse than it had been before I had left.

Moving out and starting my own life kept me busy. My wife and I met in high school and 2 or 3 years after I had graduated we started dating. Her family were Lutherans. I attended their church, which was very traditional. Around the time we were married a member of her church started their own contemporary church and her family along with us joined the core group. It was great at first. Lots of fun singing, worshiping, and the pastor's sermons were pretty good.

After awhile, probably when our daughter was 4-5 and my son was still a toddler, church seemed like a chore. The church had moved around renting or leasing buildings. I volunteered to break down the sound equipment. As time went on it would seem the only reason we went to church was to have the kids visit their grand-parents and for me to break down sound equipment. It was really distracting and most of the time I felt I got absolutely nothing from going. I knew a lot of the people at church, during church it seemed everyone put on their happy face. Away from church these people(which included family members) were completely different. It really bothered my wife and I. We discussed these things all the time.

We decided together to stop going. We didn't join a coed soccer league to avoid church, but having the games in that league on Sundays made it easier for us to slip away.

At least 10 years flew by. My wife and I have had a great marriage and we haven't had any issues living without church or God.

I felt a void that was empty, I had questions and I really wanted to reconnect with God. My wife and I discussed joining another church locally, we even went to some Easter or Christmas services at a couple local churches. Each one seemed the same... singing, worshiping, and then the money sermon comes. I figured it was just a matter of finding a new good church. I wanted to totally dive in and commit.

I asked myself if the Bible is God's Word, why aren't I reading it? I mean if God wrote a book and I grew up Christian, why have I only read parts or whatever verses the pastor brings up? I decided that if I was to fully commit I need to learn everything about this Book.

I went online and looked up the historicity of the Bible. I learned how it came together. I looked up the manuscripts and who the authors were... that is when it happened. That was the start of knowing the truth of the Bible... In the following posts I will explain and reveal what I have learned in the past 3 years I have been studying.

**DISCLAIMERS**
* No matter what I present here, you will not believe a single word unless you do the research yourself. I try my best to outline and give many links for you to follow.
* Click on the Links!, The Source pages and verses speak for themselves. Reading the sources linked backs up and expands the subject much more than i can express in the limited amount of wording I present. The links are the information.
* I am in no way going to purposely bash Christianity or try to convince anyone who reads this to  leave Christianity.
* Most of the resources I use are from http://en.wikipedia.org . Even though it can be argued that they are not 100% accurate in all their info, they are completely unbiased and present the info in a factual form with links to all references.
* Most Bible scriptures quoted will be from the NIV version at www.biblegateway.com unless otherwise stated.
* I don't pull verses out of context. If I quote a verse for the sake of presentation, I have read the entire context and I hope you do as well.
* I don't pull my information out of Theological sites, nor do i present the information in a theological form. Any scripture can be presented in many ways with theology. I try to keep all info presented in factual or historical form.
* READ your Bible! Put down the 17th century English translation of the Bible that the leaders of today's church want you to keep grips on because it is so hard to read and understand you have to go to them for interpretations and meanings. Go grab a modern translation. Most modern Bibles were translated by today's Christian scholars into today's English dialect, they have better layouts and breaks in between segments.