One of the exiting things we love to hear is stories of how people have met with God and how he has impacted their lives in a particular situation. This page is some of those stories.

Dave Forrest spent over 20 years working in the energy industry, primarily as a management accountant and more recently as a project manager for large Financial/IS developments. He is an Elder in this church.

After rejecting the mixture of Catholic and Anglican teaching I grew up with, I met a girl at seventeen who was a ‘born again’ Christian and realised she had something I needed. After a period of questioning, searching and longing I came to a place where I wanted to take that final step into faith. A friend from the girl’s church gave me a copy of ‘The Gate of the Year’ by Minnie Louise Haskins.

This spoke deeply to me about where I was at and what I had to do, but I backed out of ‘stepping into the unknown and taking the hand of God.’ I felt such a coward. The next day a ‘quirk of circumstance’ brought me to a larger church gathering where a complete stranger repeated the words from the previous night and added that Gods hand was bigger than my hand and that there was no distance to fall. God spoke and I had no option but to respond. I went away from that meeting knowing beyond any doubt that I was clean, belonged to God and was saved. The girl became my wife!

Pete Bentley is a founding elder of this church and a retired teacher who has lived in Killingworth for over 25 years. He is married to Dawn and has a grown-up son, Michael.

My story centres on two very different events that really affected my life and made me think about my faith in God. Firstly, at the age of 11 I was involved in a road accident which resulted in me severing my femoral artery in my right leg, an injury that often leads to the victim bleeding to death within a few minutes. During those vital minutes a Christian St Johns Ambulance volunteer and a nurse coming off her shift not only saved my leg but saved my life. Was it simply a coincidence?  I spent 3 months in hospital and became convinced that ‘someone up there was looking after me’ and I firmly believe that someone was God, no coincidence!

Secondly, when I was 39, our second son, John, died aged 3. As you can imagine this caused me to question God’s love and power but I came to realise that God both gives and ends life. God even allowed His only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross so that through faith I could become part of His family. Tough though it still is, I believe the Bible when it says that there is a life beyond this one and I firmly believe that I will see John again. In the meantime, God has given me a life that’s worth living – oh, and the ice-cream’s great too!

Dave Glover is a founding elder of the church and an itinerant evangelist.

‘Talking to myself’ was perhaps not quite what I envisaged when, as a young man, I was a Mars rep in the Liverpool area. God had other plans though and it was those plans that would lead my wife Sue and I to sell our lovely home, resign the job, and move to Killingworth Towers. That was over 35 years ago and we have been here ever since.  The work that we know God called us to was one of communicating His love to non church people in interesting and challenging ways. Hence my popular puppet friend George, cupboards full of magic tricks, and a few skills picked up along the way including sketchboard work (illustrating the Gospel message in paint) and more recently data video presentations. It has been a journey of faith that has taken me all over the UK and Europe as well as to Africa and the Americas. Locally though it is in the schools and churches that I spend most of my time, conducting assemblies, taking services, and running clubs and camps. It has been, and still is, a most rewarding journey. Bringing joy and laughter, as well as a life changing message, has to be one of the best jobs going and is one that I thoroughly enjoy.

Val Moderate is a retired care manager and supporter of vulnerable young adults as well as a mother of two girls and grandmother.

Becoming a Christian was the most important decision I made in my life although it took me 38 years to come take that step. I still have to face up to problems and life does not always go my way but I now  have a faith and trust that God  knows better than me and that He can see the bigger picture.

As an only child I appreciate belonging to a much bigger family who have the same belief and values that I have. We have fun times together and have a good social life but the most important thing, is we support each other and are there when times are difficult. God promises in His word that He never leaves us or forsakes us and I have experienced that many times when I have felt down. I now cannot imagine life without the knowledge that Jesus Christ is my Saviour.

Dawn Bentley is a retired primary teacher who worked in several of the local schools.

When I was a child I never expected to live anywhere else than Derbyshire where I was surrounded by the beautiful Peak District but in 1971 I came to live in Newcastle as a student and was captivated by the people. That journey was the one that bought me to live in Killingworth in 1982 and I love it here.

I became a Christian in my late teens after having a very turbulent time from the age of 13. I was the sort of child who could sniff out trouble and I always seemed to find it. My life was without purpose and direction. I became involved with a group of young people who attended a local church and began going along with them to their Youth Meetings. They were very different from me and had the direction in their lives that I so much wanted. I became a Christian after realising that God loved me and died for me and my life has never been the same since that time.

My journey with God has sometimes been exciting but at other times tragedy has struck my life. I found that at those very difficult and dark times God walked with me in a very special way and supported and upheld me. I am not perfect and I know it and so does God but he said that he would never leave me or forsake me.

I am a teacher in one of the local primary schools and I feel that it is the place where God wants me to work and I love it.