Matt Siddle: Being Confirmed

Matt Siddle generously offered these thoughts at a recent service:-

When I was first asked to talk about my journey to Confirmation, I didn’t really know what to say, especially to a group of people who had so much more experience of this journey than I. Once I’d sat down and thought about it though, I realised how good an opportunity it was to get everything clear in my own mind, and that three minutes didn’t seem very long for the size of the topic, so here goes.

I’m going to split this into two parts, firstly about my belief and then about what made me want to confirm that. When I started to think about the talk, belief seemed such an obvious thing that I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to it and wasn’t really going to talk about it. But when I was sharing about my initial thoughts with Fran [my wife], she helpfully pointed out that I wasn’t focusing much on it and wondered why, and that made me think more deeply about why that was.

The answer I got to was that there hasn’t ever really been any big AHA! moment for me, but rather that belief in God and the things that he stands for have always just been such a natural part of my life. I can never remember not believing, only periods of time where I felt I couldn’t prove to myself why I should believe even where the underlying feeling of belief felt right.

What I came to realise though is that it isn’t the proof or logical argument about why you should or do believe that matters. It is the simple act of belief in itself that matters, it is belief itself that gives the power and the ability to achieve things that you never would have thought possible. Logical arguments can help you, but belief is the thing that really drives you, what ever part of life you think about.

So given this, why haven’t I got Confirmed before? The answer really is that it never quite felt right – I didn’t feel like I fitted in to the church that I found, nor did I feel that it really gave me what I was looking for. So I just got on with life and generally felt happy with my situation and didn’t particularly think a lot more deeply about it.

Eventually I moved down to London to get a job and realised the importance to me of community and stability or a home base that had just existed naturally where I grew up. After a while I also met Fran who felt the same about community and talked about her belief and we both knew that we couldn’t see ourselves getting married anywhere other than in church in front of God.

After working this out we started trying different churches to find somewhere that we felt comfortable with and a part of. Through this I realised that there are many different aspects to God; God the healer, God the magnificent and almighty, God the friend and family. People are drawn to God in different ways for different reasons and needs and the churches they attend reflect these characteristics. I realised that what I was most interested in was exploring who God is in a free and open minded environment, to understand him better and what he could bring as a part of a community to draw people together and work to make their lives better.

In time we found this church nearby called Christ Church. Here I found a group of people who were not only very welcoming but also gave the space and freedom to learn and think about God in a range of different ways, both inside and outside the church itself. I really liked having parts of services and members of the congregation who were very different and all encouraged rather than being put into a specific box and needing to conform. I had found what I had eventually realised I had been looking for, and I wanted to commit to being a part of that, and to take this opportunity to explore God further with a group of very different but like-minded people.

So thank you all again for being a part of making Christ Church what it is.