ELLIOTT'S JOURNEY

Hey guys,

I’m Elliott, I’m 19 years old and live in Portadown (don’t hold that against me). I’ve just finished first year of Mechanical Engineering in Queens and I love sport. Still deciding whether to play for Portadown RFC or Lurgan RFC next season?? Big Man Utd fan and love nothing more than lifegroup with the 4th year boys watching Liverpool get hammered on the projector. 

I was born into a Christian home. All my family went to Tandragee Free Presbyterian so my sister, Sarah-Jane, and I were sent to every meeting under the sun. At the time I might not have been very enthusiastic all the time about going but looking back, I am so grateful for that because as a result I was faithfully taught about Jesus week in week out and it gave me a good ‘understanding’ of who He was. That was all it was to me for so long though, an understanding of who Jesus was. I became a Christian when I was 4 and then went to a small country primary school, Derryhale, where most people were Christians and backed up everything I was taught in Sunday school.

It wasn’t until I went to Tandragee JHS that I started to think about it properly for myself. I put the whole faith thing in the backseat and thought I’d come back to it later in life. I had stopped going to the youth in church and was heading out with my mates instead. The longer this went on the further I grew from Jesus until it was just something you had to do on a Sunday and played a small role in my life. At that same time, I started playing rugby for Portadown club and that was number one for me.

3 years later and I moved the Portadown College, where for us rugby was everything. I got in with the rugby lads and everything that comes with that rugby culture followed. I fell further away from God that I wasn’t going to church much anymore. It wasn’t until Lower Sixth when one of my friends brought me to Emmanuel, which was the polar opposite to what my experience of church was. I remember Phil speaking on the story of Josiah. For anyone not familiar, he’s a guy in the Old Testament that became king of Israel at the age of 8 in 2 Kings 22-23. Here was me thinking I didn’t need to worry about God until I’m older, I can do what I want for now, but God spoke to me so clearly that day and I realised that there was far more to being a Christian than having an understanding of Jesus, but that by actually following God like Josiah, even at 16/17, I could live life to the full.

I started coming to Emmanuel every Sunday and after not too long my family were coming as well. I got baptised a few months later followed by my Dad and then my sister. God was moving in our whole family’s hearts in big ways and it was amazing to see. At the end of Lower Sixth, a group of 5 lads in the rugby team started a small group on a Friday afternoon. It seemed like a weird idea at the time, but I highly recommend anyone in school to do this cause through this we saw God do incredible things and this is one of them. 

Every Christian has that one person that they’d love to see get saved. My person was this guy who was one of my best mates, but he was so far from God and church that I never really even believed it could happen. It was October of Upper Sixth and we had our SU weekend coming up. He had never been to SU before but the Head of SU asked him to come and he agreed because he said it’d be good craic. I fully believed that God had promised me he would get saved and by the end of the weekend he hadn’t… I was raging. Out of the blue on the drive home he asked me if he could come to Emmanuel that night which was promising… until I realised they were speaking on lust. That was my hopes out the window again. He came anyway and after the service ended, I turned around and he was crying his eyes out. He got saved that night and it was so insane to see how God was moving through all of it and taught me that God’s always in control. Nothing I said to him lead him to Jesus and it wasn’t how I would’ve planned it, but God used it to change his life completely.

What I’ve learnt over the last few years is to not take being at school for granted. We saw that small group grow to 8 people, but what if we had have started that in 4th year? Being in school with your mates all day is such an opportunity to show Jesus to those people who might not ever go to church. So I just challenge you to be open with your Christian mates in school (or over zoom at the moment), whatever year you guys are in. A wee small group doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just coming together and praying for your non-Christian mates and it’s amazing to see how God will use you through that. 

Praying for all you guys and excited to see you all again on Friday nights.

Elliott