The day I became a Christian

Anyone who lives or lived in New Zealand who was between about 14 and 20 knew about Easter Camp. It was like England's Leeds Festival. Except everyone who went had to be part of a Christian youth group kind of thing. It was a pretty awesome few days. I joined my friend Emma's youth group so I could go, and although I've never really got the whole idea of Christianity (slavery good, gays bad, snakes talk....?) I was open to seeing what it was all about. So by the end of the camp I was mad for the Christian bands and singing along to it all, and going to all the speeches, but can't say I was even near to converting. In fact, if anything I thought they went a bit heavy on and I couldn't have wanted to be more atheist.

On the last night we were in the massive tent where loads of the speechers were, and it was filled with every person who went. So around two to three thousand people. This last speech was the biggie; it was seeing if Easter Camp had converted anyone who wasn't a Christian before they came, to becoming one. It was quite a long speech, and my attention span is pretty bad at the best of times, so I zoned out for a while. The guy next to me nudged my arm and ask if I wanted to stand up when the room had gone silent, and I gathered we were leaving, so I stood up with him. I think this is probably the exact point when I became a Christian.

Bit of an error of judgment being one of about six people out of three thousand standing up after accidentally silently proclaiming myself a Christian. Everyone else said that they felt an outside force (don't know if they meant God or like the wind or something) making them stand up. I really didn't know what to say when I was asked why I became a Christian and how did I feel after this new stage of my life. It was a bit late to say that I hadn't been listening and stood up cause I thought everyone else was. It was definately up there with the most embarassing moments of my life, and to make things even worse, I had to go along with it for the rest of the night and then hope people would stop mentioning it a few weeks later. People were crying, and I was given at least two bibles, I had to pray in front of everyone and pretend to be all emotional. Felt a bit of a twat really.