Whilst down at the recent European Championship skateboarding competition in Northampton, I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to one of my all time heros in the skateboarding scene about his life and his relationship with God. The following is a transcript of some of the conversation I had with Lance Mountain. Lance is a Christian and he owns and runs a skateboard company called The Firm.

Me: "I just wondered what you think of Christianity, I remember reading in 'Thrasher'(a skateboard magazine) a while back that Ray Barbee, I'm sure he mentioned your name, that you'd been to bible studies and stuff, I'm not sure, I mean I don't take everything for granted that I read in magazines at all."

Lance: "Well no, yeah, I'm a, I'm a Christian I guess, I don't, you know, it's weird the more you talk about it seems weird like, 'what does that mean?' you know, like everyone has their own view of what they think a Christian is, everybody claims to be a Christian you know, I just believe that Jesus Christ is my saviour and that he's the only way to get to the Father and to God, you know everyone believes there is a God I think, so, I mean it's just everybodies version of what they think God is, so I don't know, I don't agree with everyone, I dont know, it's weird, it's in your heart, it's your relationship with the Lord I think, you know, and I cant judge what somebody elses is or, when I hear people say like oh, you know, eh, I dont know, it's upsetting, that's what really is upsetting to me because I dont know how to deal with that, like when somebody comes to me and I know that they're, they, like I was talking to somebody yesterday and I told them that, you know, eh, they asked me if I believe in God and I said yeah, of course, and they believe in God, it's what their God is that is totally different from what I believe, I said I believe in Jesus Christ and they're all 'Yeah so do I' but then they're saying all this other stuff too and it doesn't line up with what the word says, you know, Jesus Christ says 'He is the Word, He is the Truth' so, I mean it's all one, and like you can't say that you believe in Christ our God and not believe what the Word says. You know, and then eh, it just gets all theological and it gets weird i think, you know it's real simple I think. It's a relationship with the Lord and if you let Him guide you and lead you in all truth He will, you know. And I think we're all at different stages of where we are, you know, it might look weird to somebody and, you know, and somebody might be having a troubled problem in that area and we just want to point the finger out, well, 'There can't be a God, there can't be a God' because look at that person's doing that and, it has nothing to do with it, you know. I don't know, I don't really, eh, know, I mean I know what I believe and I'm always learning I hope too, but it's not, it's definitely not, I don't believe it to be like knowledge, you know, learning with knowledge, learning with the Lord, I mean it's like I have no knowledge, I have no understanding of what God is really, to be honest."

Me: "I can understand that one, I think the more you try to understand..."

Lance: "Yeah, right, it's all what He has done for me not something I can do, it's not something I can say, 'Oh yeah, I believe in God', i mean the reason I believe God is cause, He, He has given me that belief, you know, He's done it all. I dont know, I get, If people start asking me stuff I get really like, when they start telling me their views and everything just gets really weird and all I can say is just be honest with the Lord and pray about it, and He'll show you what he wants you to know, what he expects of you and what to believe, you know, if you try to make it up yourself it's just, that's what religion is I think, it's our own interpretation of what God really is. There's a lot of false, I guess.."

Me: "I mean I certainly find it weird, cause I go, the church that I go to, it gets classed as a charismatic church, it's quite full on, lot's of stuff about spiritual warfare and, you know, quite a full on church, it's good but sometimes, you know, I find it's really hard contrasting it with a lot of the churches some of my friends go to, they're really different and it, sometimes it, I find it really taxing at times, you know, it's really awkward you know."

lance: "Some of the say that you have to be real spiritual or if it's not spiritual it's not of the Lord and if you don't have those signs and gifts that's the only proof. It's just that everyone has these different views, you know, I dont know, ultimately it doesnt really say that in the bible. I mean, like Salman(another Christian skater) told me once which just totally stands out and totally, like it's just one point he made to me and we all have these views on how it has to be and it's just like, when the one thief died, the one on the side of Jesus, Jesus just said remember me and you'll be in heaven with me tonight, with my Father, that's all he did, he didn't do any of that other stuff, so it's like, he just cried out to him, 'remember me' and that's all he had to do. It seemsto me that's proof that you don't have to have all these other things, even though, the other things are signs of it, not meaning that people who have that aren't saved."

Me:"The thing that stands out with that is like, it says in the bible so many people will have the gifts and signs, and, it doesn't mean, eh, If they don't know God."

Lance: "Yeah, uh, there's a lot of you know, satan will deceive you and I'm sure there's a lot of people that satan has given the giftsto to make them look good. You know, I dont know, I'm not sure you know, you get into it too much and you get really weird, I think that this is a big spiritual movement now you know,"

Me:"Definitely, within my church there's definitely a big movement."

Lance: "I think there's a whole false spiritual movement going on too, especially back where we are(California). you know, there's all these signs and stuff and all these spiritual things but when you come to question it they're all 'You can't question it,' you know 'that's satan' if you even say you should question it, i think you should question it, it says to question, where it is from, you know, and ultimately if you go down to what they, I don't know, If it just doesn't line up to what the word says, it's like you know, somethings wrong. You know like people who preach that you can't be sick, like it's a sin to be sick or you don't have enough faith. I don't see anywhere in the bible that says that, like, you don't have enough faith to be poor or whatever, no, the Lord lets us go through hard times and troubles to lean on Him, you know, that's what it says, it doesn't say anything about, you know, you can't be poor, you don't have enough faith if your poor, I dont know. They try to back up with scripture by saying Jesus was rich, I mean it's just people's interpretations, he had a treasurer so he was rich, like, I dont know, he didn't sound rich to me, sleeping on the ground. It's a lot simpler than that I think, the Lord does it all and if you accept it..."

. . . Sometime later after some untaped conversation, (Hey, it's private you know!) Talking about his company The Firm . . .

Lance: "...I have high expectations you know, maybe that's not where its, you know, i don't know, maybe it's just nothing you know."

Me: "That's the thing I find hard...(muffled)...I start putting, I get high expectations and it doesn't come out, and I get discouraged and I start not wanting to, you have to keep such high expectations, and they come down, but I suppose you've got to learn."

Lance: "See, I just want to try, I want to try 100%, without trying to do it on my own, and I don't wanna, if things don't go where I want to, not try it, it's a hard life. And I've been, I asked the lord to teach me that you know, like, i want Him to teach me that, like, yeah, I have, I have NO patience, I don't have patience. like you know He's showing me, he's teaching me, I don't know. it's weird, these little games, these spiritual games."

Me: "Mmm, I get ideas, you know sometimes I get ideas, it feels so right and it happens, you know, and sometimes it doesn't come out you know, and I start wondering, I think I get to the point where I start wanting to have much better I think, yeah, I think I'm wrong in that way, I'm kinda wanting to know which is the right thing to start going after before I even start going very far in going for it, yeah, it's like, I spend a lot of the time, you know, I wouldn't mind getting married or something, but then I.."

Lance: " 'If it's not going to happen then I'm not gonna go after it,' I know exactly what you're saying.."

Me: "I was going out with a girl for ages and, like that's kind of fallen through, and I'm, I don't really know how to approach that anymore, you know, because my whole attitude is, there's been so much wrong in my life in that area in the past, I have no idea how to approach that. She'd have to be a Christian, you know, obviously, she can't be going out and getting really drunk or something like that, you know, I mean I stopped drinking before I became a Christian, I just got tired of all that."

Lance: "It's rad because when you let it go up and let it go and it'll just come around, whenever, usually, it usually comes around and it's just like, 'Wow, I didn't even go after that!' and you know the Lord gave it to you. I know exactly what you're saying, cause, like I'm working whatever, 16 hours a day, and I just wanna, I want to know Lord like, is this going to be good? I dont want to put any more time into it, {laugh} I don't want to work hard like this, like I want to know the out come first instead of just working each day, like i don't work anymore unless I know I'm gonna get through it. Whatever you know, like, that's just how, it's weird you like, know it's wrong. Like Salman riding for us, When I started 3 years ago, I felt like I knew exactly how it was going to get laid out, like I knew in my heart Salman was going to ride for us, it's weird, I didn't ask him, I didn't want ask him, I can't go ask him, 'Hey you want to ride for us? like uh, what do you get? 2000 dollars a month? yeah, we'll give you 100 bucks!' {laughs} I don't wanna go ask people or nothing, and then like for those three years I was going, 'I dont know what, what was that? it must of been wrong you know, like, that's weird, you know, none of that's going to happen. And then he just calls me out of the blue, it was out of my mind completely, like no way, 'Hey, I'm going to ride for you', 'What?', 'I'm riding for you.' And the same with Ray, like, Ray wasn't a Christian, He accepted the Lord after the company started, it was just like right at the time when I was going like 'I dont know if there's any purpose to doing this,' and then Ray accepted the Lord, it's so weird, it's so weird, it's just raaad! it all shows you like, and now I know I can just go and do something else like, whatever the Lord wants, He's already proved Himself so much. I can't tell somebody else 'Oh yeah your right' like you know, except for me you know. The Lord is so good, that's the message."

This page was originally coded on the CRAYt 286 supercomputer.