It's very late and I should be sleeping, but I'm not. I've been talking to my sister for the last hour+. You'd think we would have more sense than that, but obviously we don't. It's weird. I'm 47, she'll be 45 this year and sometimes we both act like we are still in high school. We're such dorks, and we try so hard to be adults.
Tonight I taught an interesting lesson to the God's Friends class. We've been studying the Book of Revelation. It's been an amazing journey. But, the weekly lessons are a lot of fun for me to develop and lead. Tonight I asked them to tell their story.
I think that we have a lot of trouble identifying our stories. Our stories of faith. We think that these stories have to be profound, or they aren't worth telling. But the simplest story can be huge when it is heard by the person who is impacted by it. And if we aren't telling the stories, people can't hear the stories.
One of the questions I asked tonight was "Who has impacted your faith walk?" Who is the person that was there when God swept you off your feet. Or at least brought you to that point. And what has been a pivotal point in your faith journey? Simple questions like, "what is your favorite Bible verse?" will cause you to begin thinking about your story. If you can answer that question and then expand the answer to include why that verse is meaningful to you ... you are telling your story.
When I was in high school, my parents discovered "Evangelism Explosion" by D. James Kennedy. It was a tool that was to be used to give a person accessibility to his/her testimony. After you dealt with your 'testimony', you were trained to be able to tell it to anyone at any time. The hardest thing for me was the fact that I had to go out to people's homes and try to encourage them to let me tell them my 'testimony'. I hated that. It was way too Jehovah's Witness / Mormon missionary for me. But, it did force me to identify how God was working in my life.
My story wasn't great or profound. I was a good kid from a good home. We had always been a solid, Christian home. But, I learned the importance of my story. So ... think about how God has changed your life. The little things ... the big things. God is always there - do you recognize His hand?
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The morning of my confirmation we were asked to kneel to receive communion. I was swept up with an amazing feeling and I began to cry. When I later told my fellow confirmand friend she looked at me like I was crazy, so I clammed up. Now, my little town church didn't have a youth director or anyone that I felt I was able to tell this experience to. So the day the Holy Spirit came to me was a very private one - but one that I will always remember. It was years before I was able to identify what happened to me that morning - but I knew my life was changed.
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