The 2007 Pastor’s Conference and the annual state Baptist convention meeting earlier this month in Florence emphasized the theme, “A Story to Tell.”
That theme is worth bearing in mind at all times. Christianity is about testimony. The early church began with the apostle Peter’s testimony about Jesus on the day of Pentecost. By his preaching and that of Paul, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire.
The first Christians held to the practice of testimony. They told of the redemptive work of Jesus as well as their own experiences with God. In fact, the whole New Testament is a testimony of the experiences that early believers had with God’s transforming power.
Has the need among believers to talk about their faith grown less urgent today? Are there what we might think of as more pressing needs, even in the church?
Of course, we must never let up in our efforts to tell others about Jesus. Our lives of commitment to Christ make our faith testimony valid, but without the words that express our hope in the Lord, our testimony is not complete.
As Christian author Diana Butler Bass expressed it, we are called upon to be “talking the walk.”
Believers are changed by giving their faith testimonies. And others are changed by hearing them. God speaks through his people. Our testimonies affirm in our own lives, and provide a witness to others, that the Christian story is real and biblical faith is powerful.
On Nov. 19, my wife Linda and I marked our 41st wedding anniversary. We dated eight years prior to that. And even before then, we were youth in the High Point Baptist Church near Lancaster, where for a dozen years my father was pastor. Our life together has been a faith story, and we have shared it – in our own church, as well as in Romania during our participation in a missions partnership with that European nation.
With each telling as an opportunity arises, that faith story heightens our realization of, and gratitude for, God’s work of grace, mercy and forgiveness in our lives.
Our story is no different from countless others – many told to God’s glory and others regrettably left unsaid.
The testimony of the individual believer is, according to Bass, “not a spirituality of arrival. It is the act of getting there.”
You and I are pilgrims, and pilgrims have stories to tell. It always has been that way among believers. And by telling our faith stories, we make a discovery that both comforts and encourages us: We are not alone on our journeys of “getting there.” We find to our delight, and relief, that other pilgrims are traveling the same road that we are. And so we must tell our stories.
The joint testimony of my wife and me lacks the drama of, say, a Damascus Road experience. Instead, it is a simple story. We grew up in the Christian faith. We were led by God to become traveling companions on the journey of a lifetime. We have been sustained in our pilgrimage by God and fellow travelers. Still, it is our story – and a story to tell. So is yours, as we believers “talk the walk.”