Clive's testimony

MY CHRISTIAN BACKGROUND in brief

Brought up in a church-going family, I was familiar from a young age with Christian teaching, becoming a member of a local ‘Covenanters’ group and even trying out a spot of Sunday school teaching in my teens. However, I was becoming increasingly uneasy about Christian certainties, and, partly due to the influence of a brilliant but sceptical English teacher at school, I began to question the truth of the Gospel message. Faced with the prospect of going to university and, as I thought, encountering unanswerable challenges to my struggling faith, I asked God to make it plain that He existed or otherwise to withdraw quietly from the scene! I didn’t want to lose my faith but I feared that was the likely outcome.

Fortunately, when I went up to Cambridge, I fell in with a group of lively, committed Christians and in addition was able to hear sermons and talks that addressed my intellectual doubts. The Gospel really did make sense! That first year at university was crucial, and, although I cannot point to a particular time or place, I came to an assurance of Christ’s presence and a determination to follow him, as best I could, in the years ahead. That was over 50 years ago!

Going to Uganda after university began another formative period of my life. I learnt so much from the African Christians who befriended me and, during the years I was abroad, I managed to divest myself of some of my cultural narrowness. I also found (much to my surprise) that my creative instincts were being harnessed in God’s service.

The ongoing keynote of my Christian life can be summed up in the phrase “Work in Progress”. Discipleship isn’t a one-off and it’s not something bestowed on you like an honorary degree. So I am still pressing on, to use St Paul’s phrase (see Philippians 3.12-14), and still trying to grow in my knowledge of the Lord.

Clive Lewis