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First published in The Baptist Times, Dec 4 2008
BEING IN GOD'S GANG Clare Nonhebel
David Forsyth doesn't waste time. He arrives suddenly, pulls up a chair, and switches from movement to attentiveness within seconds.
Currently he's studying for a degree in film and media, writing two books, helping administer a charity in the Gambia, is in prayer ministry and would like to do more speaking and evangelism. ‘I don't want to live aimlessly.'
He knows about living aimlessly. Now 52, he grew up in Glasgow's gang culture when Glasgow was having its industrial heart ripped out. As shipyards and factories closed, vast housing estates like Drumchapel became semi-derelict as ‘anyone with any sense or brains moved out in search of work.'
David and his elder brother, brought up by his mother who had had to separate from his alcoholic father, stayed. David recalls, ‘My brother and I were wild - small, skinny as rakes, but very violent.'
The aimlessness of Drumchapel life drew out rival gangs to patrol small patches of territory. Up to a hundred teenage boys would walk round the same block all evening, every evening. Only fights with other gangs, or the police, broke the monotony.
As in London now, panic about knife crime made young people feel unsafe without a ‘blade'. As violence intensified, many lads ‘got jobs, got girlfriends, got sensible' and the gang reduced to ‘five or six tough guys who could call on each other to fight when any of them had a score to settle with someone.'
Though loyal to gang brothers (‘And I wish we could take some of that loyalty into church circles sometimes!') David had some wake-up calls. In a pub fist-fight one night a friend stabbed a boy 17 times. ‘He nearly died. I thought, "What was that about?"'
David's mother was Catholic. ‘From where I sat in church I could just about see the priest, and I felt he could just about see God. I knew Jesus was God and I prayed sometimes, but it wasn't a relationship.'
David had a string of convictions for assault when, at 20, he got married and vowed to change. But in retaliation against a group of men who abused his wife, David and his brother nearly killed two of them and were given three years in prison for attempted murder. His marriage broke up.
In prison he met men who boasted about their cold-blooded decision to kill. ‘I didn't ever want to cross that line, become that corrupt. But I knew if I ever had trouble with people like that, I'd have to kill them to win. I wondered once, "Who am I?" and had an image of a black twisted ball of maggots.'
He experienced from some prison warders and police the same brutal mentality of the street gangs. Later, in church circles, he would find people reluctant to believe such abuses of authority occur in British institutions - perhaps because many churches have themselves become institutional.
David started smoking hash in prison, and on his return to Drumchapel found the gangs dealing speed and acid. ‘I had this double-minded attitude: I was looking for peace, love and acceptance - but if trouble came I was prepared to kill.'
But there were signs that God was pursuing this man for his own gang.
David recalls, ‘One night my friend was being threatened and I sent him to get a knife while I held the guy, and a voice I'd never heard before said, "Stop - you can't kill someone!" I let him go.'
Looking for answers, he read the Book of Revelations while hallucinating on drugs and for 18 months believed he was the Messiah.
‘I went on a three-day acid trip and was chased down the road by what I still know, 25 years later, was an entity from hell. I've been chased by people with knives but this was demonic: I was petrified.
‘I knew the spiritual world was real. All over the world, shamans, witchdoctors and tribes take hallucinogenic substances in order to open the door to the spirit world, but in the West we take drugs and don't even know there is a spirit world.'
Panic and confusion gripped him, relationships had become ‘seedy and meaningless' and, desperate to get out of Drumchapel, David took up a friend's invitation to go to Germany to find work.
He met a German girl, they went travelling, and life seemed carefree till he crossed another line. ‘We sold our blood to get money for speed. Now, blood's a sacred thing. And she had a thirst for heroin like I'd never known.
‘We split up and I went to France - to Lourdes, where I prayed to God to do something for this girl. Then I found my heart crying out, "Heal my soul, God! Heal my soul!"
A prolonged drinking bout with some down-and-outs ended with an unexpected welcome into family life when David met a Belgian girl and was invited to stay with her parents in Brussels. ‘She asked me, out of respect for them, not to drink or take drugs, and her dad even found me a job. For six months I was clean, working every day, relating to normal people, learning French.'
David and his girlfriend went travelling for a year then returned to Brussels. ‘On the way home from work one evening, I stopped to watch a YWAM team doing street drama ... and to argue with them!
‘I met with them a few times. They said unless we deal with sin that's at the core of our being we cannot hope to walk with God. I believed it, but they wanted me to give my whole life to God and I wasn't doing that!
‘But next day my girlfriend's dad was taken to hospital and I caught myself praying, "God, heal this man!"
‘I thought, this is the same God I've just said I'm having nothing to do with because he wants my whole life. So I prayed and gave him my life.
‘I thought becoming a Christian would be happy-ever-after .... But I was broken, damaged and depraved and I don't think church is geared up for people like me. It takes an awful lot more to disciple somebody.
‘What helped me stay true was that I had a good Christian friend who believed the best of me. The YWAM team introduced me to Andrew, from Scotland, and we've been friends for 25 years. He encouraged me to go to YWAM worship meetings, when I wasn't ready for church.
‘First time there, I thought the people were mental - they were ecstatic! But people can get that excited about Celtic and Rangers and if the God of the universe is touching people, surely they can't contain it? And the preaching really brought God's word to life.'
When David and his girlfriend parted he returned to Scotland, joined a Catholic charismatic group and applied to join a community but heard God say, ‘Change your plans.'
Andrew invited David to join a YWAM evangelism team in the Far East. Training included intensive prayer, and in three months there David witnessed 3,500 people commit to Christ. ‘It was great being part of a team that was zealous for God.'
Back home, some stringent tests of faith lay ahead. For eight years David was immersed in church and community work but felt part of the failure to help the many people from troubled backgrounds who came to God then drifted away.
The difficulty of dying to the old self became doubly clear to David when he married again.
‘We both came into the relationship with a lot of baggage. Mine was insecurity, unforgiveness, anger - things I thought had died. Between us, we only lasted 18 months.'
Hurtful gossip spread through local churches; people were ready to assume the worst. ‘And I didn't react like a Christian. I felt stigmatised and ostracised and I walked away from God.
‘When I came back, Christian brothers met me with the gift of suspicion. I wanted God but I didn't want his people - and it doesn't work like that. God was doing a deep work in my heart. I had to forgive.'
He has spent the last couple of years working with the homeless, addicts, alcoholics and kids in rehabilitation, and says, ‘It's important that we do everything to make sure they make it.
‘A lot of churches teach doctrine well but if they are self-righteous, or middle-class institutions, people who are broken won't find the heart of Christ.
‘If you've come from a decent background you may not have discovered how sinful and depraved you really are. Human depravity's a terrible thing. People don't do things they think are wrong; they justify their behaviour.
‘The only way people get saved is through God speaking to their heart. He was working in my life before I knew him. And I thank God for that.'
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