Cardboard Testimonies

We had a great service yesterday at Christian Challenge. Pastor Nathan shared a video of a neat illustration from another church. He also posted it here on his blog. (Check it out! Really!)

I really like the idea of a short-n-sweet, one-liner testimony. I've spent a lot of time telling my story on my web site. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, and the process of journaling everything has been helpful to me personally... but it isn't very helpful when you only have a couple of minutes to make an impact on someone.

So I've been thinking about how I could express the things God has been doing in my life in "cardboard testimony" format.

This is what I came up with:

Before - Isolated and lonely
After - Part of a loving church family

Before - God seemed harsh and distant
After - God was closer than I thought

Before - Caught up in legalism
After - Free in Christ

Before - Felt like I could never measure up

After - Secure in God's grace

Happy New Year!

I received some very useful feedback on the recoveringpentecostal.net site over the last couple of weeks, so I spent a some time during my "holiday break" revising and clarifying things there. Writing is so much more difficult than speaking... no one can see your facial expression or body language, so it is very easy to be misunderstood online.

I'm sure I'm not done yet, either! I definitely don't want to leave people with the impression that I hate Pentecostals today, even though there was a time when that certainly would have been true. I just see things differently now, and while that is an amazingly wonderful thing for me, I understand that others will see it as a negative.

Sharing my story online has also helped me when I share it offline. Writing something down (or in my case, typing it up!) forces you to express yourself more clearly. At the end of the LifeStories book (from my home team this past fall) there was a place to write out your testimony. At the time, I thought it was a little corny... but now I see the value.

I'm a member of an organization where I give short presentations from time to time. I've also conducted some training sessions at my office. No matter what the subject, I always like to write it out ahead of time. It's just so much easier to give a clear and concise presentation when you've planned ahead. Why should our testimonies be any different? So if you're up for a challenge... write out your testimony. If you're really up for a challenge, blog your testimony! And feel free to send me a copy, I'll read it!