Alan Poore
I grew up in a loving 2-parent home. Both parents worked so we would not go without. My father worked late & my mother worked swing shifts. We didn’t go to church, but we still thought we were Christians. I guess I believed being a Christian was an inheritance because I knew the church at which my ancestors were buried. In 2nd grade I started going to church on a church bus that came around the neighborhood. When I got saved there, my mother would not let me join or get baptized. She felt I did not understand what it meant. She told me to wait until I was older & understood it better. The people at the church started pressuring me about it joining and getting baptized, so I stopped going. I thought that you didn’t have to go to church to go to Heaven. Apparently I didn’t understand my salvation experience because at this point I also thought you just had to be good to go to Heaven. In high school, an evangelist came and made a patriotic presentation at school. He was having an event that night, & some friends & I decided to go. We were in ROTC & liked the patriotism displayed at school that day. When we got there,we discovered it was a revival. And when the invitation was given, we went forward but only because everyone else did. I took some religion classes at college, but my attitudes still did not change. At this time, I felt the Bible was just written by men to control others.
I eventually got married & moved to the Spartanburg area. God was not a part of the marriage, and it failed for that reason. I felt Him carrying me through that time, & I started visiting churches. I visited FBNS & started attending regularly. I began to learn that I was wrong about many things. I learned that being good will not get you into Heaven. I learned that Jesus died for my sins & rose again. One Sunday there was a presentation about a mission trip that had just returned from Turkana. There was a video of the people there. They didn’t have anything we have, but they did have something I did not. I wanted what they had. I wanted a personal relationship with my risen Savior. There was not an invitation that day, but I went down and got saved. Then I was was baptized in August 2002.
After that I started going to church regularly & started tithing. I read the Bible completely.Until then I did not realize how it was written over many centuries but still fits together and is inspired & guided by God. I have prayed for guidance in each step of my life since then. I became concerned over whether God wanted me to be alone for the remainder of my life (due to my divorce) or if He wanted me to find someone. I asked for a sign & that night I met Kim. The Lord has helped me to realize that all we have is His, on loan to us to use for a time. I still have far to go, but I am trying to be more like Jesus each day as the Bible commands.
Posted in I Thought I was a Christian, I was Searching for More ,
