Testimonies

One of the sessions I attended at Pepperdine was co-taught by Josh Graves and Sara Barton from Rochester College. Sara was talking about getting people to give testimonials as a part of her responsibility for planning chapel programs, and commented that until recently she had never felt like she had a testimony worth sharing. She had grown up in a Christian home, gone to a Christian college, experienced her share of life's ups and downs, but had not experienced any of the particularly dramatic moments that made for a "good" testimony (a perspective that I could fully relate to). She said that she had come to realize that she DID have a testimony, that she had a story to tell of what God had done for her...

Last night in the Rotunda class Dwight opened things up by reading the passage in Luke where Jesus cast out a legion of demons from a man into a herd of pigs. Afterwards the man asked Jesus if he could follow him, and Jesus' response was "No, go back to your family and tell them all the wonderful things God has done for you." (Luke 8:39) After he finished reading two Skillman members gave testimonies of what God has done for them. Nothing dramatic, but stories of their faith and journeys to this point in their lives...

Whether we recognize it or not, our lives are a testimony - whether good or bad. But verbal testimonies of what God has done can strengthen the body, and can strengthen the persons giving them. And they don't have to be dramatic to be effective.