Name

Greg Grant

What was your life style like when you decided to follow Jesus?

I was a professional musician playing in a Rock n Roll pub band 3-4 nights a week in Perth. I mixed mainly with musicians and pub patrons and I lived in a shared accommodation house with two female friends.

What year were you baptised? What age were you?

I was baptised in 1983 and I would have been 30.

Where did you begin to worship and what was your first impression of the church?

I first began to worship at City Beach Church of Christ. My first impression was how friendly everybody was, even though I came from a lifestyle that was so totally foreign to most of them I was very surprised that this church was so much friendlier than any of the Catholic churches I had grown up in. People actually hung around afterwards and talked to each other, in the Catholic Church you were almost killed in the rush to get out the doors once mass was over.

What difficulties / challenges did you have in striving to be like Jesus?

Accepting and understanding what a wonderful gift salvation is. I did not go out trying to convert the world like you hear of a lot of new Christians doing. I felt more like a lapsed Christian who started to go to church again more than a new Christian. So I suppose a lot of my challenge was getting to understand what a fantastic gift grace is and to move away from the Catholic view point that I had which was that Church is something you did only Sunday and the rest of the time was part of the world.

What challenges did you have in feeling part of the Lord’s body?

Not long after I was baptised I moved back to Sydney. I was still pursuing my musical career so making new friends in the church and feeling accepted was very hard. The world I was still moving in was not a world conducive to growing spiritually and I probably wasn’t making a big effort to be a part of the church so I am glad that the Lord kept me strong within myself and kept me from wavering. The lord sent me enough good people like Brett Christensen, Jenny Barker, Ted Paul and others who accepted me for who I was and gave me enough encouragement to stay.

What principles of the Restoration movement (restoring Christianity to be as it is in the New Testament) are important to you?

Getting back to the bible truths. I always believed that there was a God but I was so turned off Christianity by the hypocrisy I saw in the Catholic Church and Catholic schools that I began looking elsewhere for the truth. In Catholicism you are taught that the Catholic Church is the one true Church and as I had no other knowledge of other Christian churches I looked at Eastern religions. The Beatles had experimented with Indian religions in the late 60s and so that made it cool. When you read the bible you can feel the truth of it, you may not understand everything but it comes with a truth, a wisdom that is not in other religions. It comes with a truth that doesn’t need a whole heap of man made rules to help you understand. God’s truth is both extremely deep and very simple.

What did you think about having no musical instruments in worship?

Being a musician I thought it was a bit odd but it never really became a big issue to me. I sat back and went with the flow and in time I came to see the wisdom behind not using musician instruments in the worship service. I did go back to City Beach many years later and they had thrown out their usual hymn books and set up there own books just using only scripture. It was abysmal, I think if that would have been the case when I was first going to the church I would not have stayed. God gave us all different talents and one of those talents is the musical ability to write wonderful hymns of praise. We do not need musical instruments but we certainly do need to tap into the wonderful melodies and words that God gave to people like Fanny J Crosby so that we can sing songs with a joy in our hearts. Music is one of the greatest joys God has given mankind

What spiritual interest did you have before becoming a Christian?

I always knew that there was a God, a higher power that made all the wonderful things around us in the world. My quest was to find the truth and as the Lord says “Seek and you shall find.”

What is important to you, in how you walk in Jesus today?

Trying to keep my focus on Jesus. Satan does everything in his power to deceive us so that a lot of times we don’t even realise our focus is not on Jesus so I am trying and failing regularly to make sure my focus is on Jesus and not on the world. Seek first the kingdom of God.

Where do you worship today? Approximately how many brethren?

Eastside at Bondi Junction.

What roles do you carry out in the church?

I am the treasurer and do a bit of preaching & teaching as well as doing things like leading the Lords Supper and Prayers and church business meetings.