I guess it didn't take much, really. My old man had been a Baptist preacher for a while, and when he quit, he still insisted that we attend a Baptist Church. Even though I could tell he resented the cliques in the big churches. In fact, it occurs to me now that he really didn't care at all what I thought about all this.
I'll never forget one day, walking out of a particularly passionate service where the invocation to walk down the aisle and become a member of the church (that meant, being saved from eternal damnation, in case you never went through this ordeal) seemed unusually strong to a young child. (I guess I was around 12.) And as my dad and I left the church, I asked him, "Do you think I should have gone down the aisle and become a Christian?"
He was holding my hand. He wasn't a real touchy-feely guy. But he looked me right in the eye and said, "Why don't you wait until you're a little older."
Later on, he would regret the fact that I never accepted Christ as my personal savior. But I wonder if he ever did, either. How much of this is just their wish for us to have a better life with some sort of guidance?
I do know this. When I once read dolphinboy's now deleted cut & paste w/u on exactly what a person goes through in a crucifixion, the pain and the suffering and the love of Jesus is not lost on me,
no matter how hard I try to forget.