Dave's intro.

I am 57 years old, married to Kriss, with two adult children. My son is married and they have recently presented us with our first grandchild who will be 9 weeks old this Thursday. My daughter is about to return home, after 10 years, to live and work in the local area. We live just outside Elgin in the north east of Scotland.

Myself & Kriss are members of Elgin Community Church which is affiliated to the Church of God that has its HQ in Cleveland, TN. We have both been Christian believers since September '83.

It is only in recent years though that we have really started to get hold of what it all means in terms of understanding and committment. For various reasons, eg: lack of personal committment; poor discipleship; wrong lifestyle choices; we have not grown in the way that we should have done.

Kriss realised this before I did but we now both try to live out our lives for Jesus Christ.

Personally I know that I need to make more of my life for Christ's sake and to practice being the husband and father He made me to be.

I was the eldest son of two boys and my younger brother Will died, aged 22, after being in a coma for 7 months after a road accident, in which his girlfriend was killed.

Mum and dad did there best for us but I know it was always a struggle for them to make ends meet. My mum had had a hard upbringing and was consequently very hard on us boys. Dad was more loving and although he had a quick temper he was, as I call it, spiritually philosophical. Mum had the tradtional idea that there was a god but there was no mention of Jesus Christ. I can remember going to Sunday school and I recall a number of spiritual type incidents, over the years, whilst growing up and into adult life. However it was not until 1983 that I was confronted with the reality of what Jesus Christ had done for me on the cross.

At that time we attended a Church of England church on the base I was at, out in Germany, and we came to Scotland soon after, where we started attending a Baptist church. After a number of years there the minister left and we found ourselves in a fellowship where the work of the Holy Spirit today was being doubted and sometimes even denied. Kriss left before I did and started going to a pentecostal fellowship. I followed a year later and I now find myself, 7 years later, in leadership, although I have always tried to deny this! LOL!

So, that's where I am at the moment. Our fellowship was given a particular 'picture' a couple of years ago that really spoke to me. We were told that the Christian life is like swimming up a fish ladder; we swim up to each resting pool, have a season in the resting pool and then swim up against the tide to the next resting pool - and so on. I feel that at this time it is time to leave the resting pool I am currently resting in!

Being involved in CCC is, I know, going to help me spend more of my time more productively and I am so looking forward to posting my thoughts and hopefully commenting constructively on the other members' thoughts.