Tag: christian testimonies

My conversion from a practising Catholic to a Bible Believing Christian is primarily down to the change that I witnessed in my father’s life. One day I heard him listening to an old time American preacher. I remember saying to him: “Why are you listening to this? You’re a Catholic and we’re good people.” He responded by saying to me: “It isn’t enough for me now. I need something else. And I am not a good person.” Now, I must say that for a person who went to church every day, was on most church committees and had even penned a book about our church (which sold very well), this amazed me. This was to be a major turning point for my father and little did I know, for me too.

During this period, I was a singer with my own big band orchestra. We were at the level of semi-professional (I even worked with a trombonist who played with Frank Sinatra) and I absolutely worshipped this musical world that I was a part ofAll my energy and spare time after work went into making music my future. I would record 3 CDs and spend a small fortune producing these to float around to prospective agents. However, with the drastic change in my father’s life, I couldn’t ignore it and we would spend hours talking about the Bible, morals and the Catholic church. It took me 3 years to fully realise that I too needed to be Born Again.

I can remember very well, my father giving me a copy of an old 1880 King James Bible, which I still have. I read this and found its content totally amazing. All the years of being in the Catholic Church, with its many rituals and its repetitiveness, and yet the Bible was so fresh. Later I would seek out other translations and versions, but the King James has and will remain my Bible.

As band leader it was my responsibility to not only hire and fire musicians but also to find adequate venues to rehearse the orchestra, sometimes twice weekly. On numerous occasions I was able to secure two different church halls. I distinctly remember one being a Methodist church and one of the elders of that church, for a period of perhaps 18 months or so, never once witnessed to me or my musicians.

All I recall him stressing was that “no smoking or alcohol was permitted on the premises.” Also intriguing was how our keyboard player was their Sunday organist and he too never shared the Gospel with me or the 17 other guys. One can be “religious” yet not saved. Needless to say, when I got saved, Gospel tracts were sent to both parties and other “religious” people I had long known, prior to my new birth.