Testifying: stories of God’s renewal
Telling others about what God has done to renew your church helps you hone your witness to others. This is important because our spirituality is not meant to be kept to ourselves; we should reach out to others with the good news of God’s love for all people. Telling the story of your church’s renewal also helps other churches glean ideas about how to help others experience God’s mercies, which are new every morning.
Send stories of your church’s renewal services to Teresa Stricklen.
Giving glory to God
Teresa Stricklen offers this memory from her youth
I hadn’t expected anything, but it was something to do in our small town. So we gathered each summer evening one week in the church, politely welcoming the lay leadership team of folks who had come from where — the presbytery? the synod? — to lead us in spiritual renewal. The services were rather tame — not the snazzy revival fare of other local churches. We had no band, just a single guitar. We only had about 35 people each evening. To be honest, I was there because my friend wanted someone to go with her. It seemed to me like these renewal services were a bust —until the last night when the leader asked for testimonies of what God had done in people’s lives.
A founding member of the church stood up. She was a shy, sober woman, an elder of much wisdom whom everyone respected. She told of praying one night about whether or not they should start this church. It seemed the odds were against them; there were so few people, too little money, no prospects for a place to meet and the presbytery at the time was less than encouraging.
“But as I prayed,” the elder said, “I felt the overwhelming presence of the Lord right there in my living room that night telling me that God wanted a Presbyterian church in this community and to go forward in trust.” Some of the other founding members in the room, now old, were tearing up, nodding and smiling.
“So we did. And now here we are all these years later, and I just want to say thank you to God for all the things that fell into place to make this night possible.”
Another founding member got up to fill in the history and at the end said something we hadn’t heard in that church, “So I want to give God glory tonight. Glory! Glory! Glory be!”
I was astonished. This man was a respected member of the community, a businessman whom I’d not heard say two words in church. He didn’t even sing the hymns on Sunday, yet here he was choking up giving God glory. What was going on here?
After that it was like a dam had burst. People stood up to tell all kinds of stories about God’s goodness. The testimonies were nothing fancy, not even memorable. Some were downright funny with someone commenting, “Isn’t that just like God!?” The normal formality of our worship had melted into something of a party atmosphere. But there was something else going on, too. An unmistakable presence of God settled in around our shoulders like a shawl on a cool evening.
As a young person, I learned something very important about the church and God that night. The words we said on Sunday lived in these quiet, ordinary people who knew God as Something More than just a character in a book. Jesus Christ truly was risen; he was there among us right then in some kind of Spirit form. I understood something of the Trinity for the first time as I felt like I was inside its dynamic movement through the course of that assembly. All this church stuff wasn’t just a story; it was a story that was continuing to live on and invite me to live within it, too.
Everyone in the church rose as one to recommit their lives to Christ that night. But it wasn’t just individuals rededicating lives; the church recommitted its life to God’s work in the greater world. I wasn’t exactly sure what all that meant at the time, but I knew I wanted to be a part of whatever was going on because it made my spirit inside hum with delight as I stood within the dynamic Presence directing everything. I wanted to be one of those people, quiet and steadfast, whose faces were shining with joy as they passed the bread to one another around the communion table: “This is the body of Christ, the cup of salvation.” I wanted to be able to testify like them of God’s goodness and give thanks.
And now, all these years later, it seems I am.
