Let me think. I could write “It was the best of times, it was the “blurst” of times”. But maybe Charles Dickens would sue me – or the monkeys from the Simpsons.
I’d probably want to write about my physical background and my spiritual background. So, I’d write about my Cork background and maybe even the specific place of my birth. The building still exists, but it stopped functioning as a maternity nursing home back in the 1960s.
And I was born again in 1980. So, I was born twice 😀. I can’t put a place on my second birth. I can’t even be sure of the exact time. The new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit. Your eyes are opened, but perhaps it takes a bit of time to understand and act. So, you could be born again without terming yourself an evangelical Christian or a “born-again Christian”. Some non-evangelical Christian denominations say that it happens when you’re baptised as a baby, but even they would emphasize the need for personal faith. And perhaps some would think of infant baptism more as a beginning of your life in the Christian community and its encouragement to you to become a true believer.
And even evangelicals might not always put a date and time on their new birth. It’s a little like asking when you fell in love. You might momentarily “fall in love” with a beautiful girl that you see in the street, but it has much more meaning when it proves to be a real, long-term, genuine experience. And not everyone might be able to pinpoint the moment that they fell in love.
But in August 1980, I took the decision to publicly identify with Jesus and to commit my life to him. On any given day, my commitment falls short, but committing your life to Christ means that you are committing to learn and apply yourself. And like any learning process, you’ll have ups and downs, but you commit yourself to persevere and not walk away. Again, it’s like a marriage.
My initial church was The Upper Room just off Camden Quay. It still functions in Cork, though it changed location. And soon, I started attending Cork Baptist Church, which has planted other Baptist churches but still exists on McCurtain Street. It was in Cork Baptist Church that I was baptised as an adult, some months after my conversion. In the New Testament, people tended to be baptised immediately after they believed. But nowadays perhaps things are more complicated because many people are brought up in denominations that baptise you as a baby. I was brought up Roman Catholic. So perhaps you wonder why you need to be baptised again. But my “believer’s baptism” was a delightful and memorable occasion. Baptist churches don’t baptise infants, but some do have a service of dedication where they celebrate the birth and pray that the baby will come to a true and living faith when it’s in a position to do so.
I cherish all my memories, both secular and spiritual. This blog, or site, is probably the closest thing that I’ll ever come to writing an autobiography.
Here are some “born again” hymns:
John 3:3
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.
2 Corinthians 17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!
1 Peter 1:3
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Hibernia Gospel 