“At fashionable dinner parties in this town, you can talk about anything. You can talk about politics, you can talk about intimacy, you can talk about money, you can talk about anything you want. But if you mention God more than once, you probably won’t be invited back.” Author, Professor, and Pastor, Thomas Long, uses these lines to open up his book on the topic of “Testimony.” In this book, he describes how ordinary Christians are often terrified, or at the very least uncomfortable, in the task of talking about God and faith when they are not in church.
Perhaps you can relate to the feeling Long describes. Perhaps you have had an experience where you felt hesitant to discuss your faith in a public setting. Perhaps you can remember an instance when you “bit your tongue” in order to stop yourself from talking about God, because you were afraid of what others might think of you. Perhaps you felt a desire to share your experiences of faith, but just didn’t quite know how to go about it.
If you can relate to any of those situations, then you are invited to join us during the 9:00 education hour as we gather in the parlor to discuss the topic of testimony. During the next three weeks, we will look at Biblical examples in which individuals were encouraged to talk about their experiences of God. We will even take time to share our own stories and practice what it might look like to have a “faith-filled” conversation. I hope to see you at 9am on Sunday as we begin this discussion together.
In Christ,
Charlie Lee