Testimonies — A Good Idea?

Hosts: TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Josh MacClaren

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, TJ, Joe, and Josh discuss the impactful role of grace stories, or testimonies, in highlighting God's work within every church member. They emphasize the importance of guiding new converts to share clear and focused testimonies that spotlight Christ's transforming power. The conversation touches on the challenges and benefits of sharing personal stories in public and small group settings, aiming to glorify God ultimately. 

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Transcript

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Joe: What's the one time when you can hand a microphone to the newest convert in your church and tell them, go ahead, teach? Stay tuned to find out. 

TJ: Thank you for joining us for another edition of Rural Church Renewal. My name is TJ Freeman. I am a rural pastor in a church that's been renewed in a rural place, and I'm joined today by some other guys.

Joe: Hey, my name's Joe. I'm in the, actually the same church is what TJ is in, and praise God, there has been renewal here. Amen. 

Josh: Hello, I'm Josh. And I have been sent by this renewed church that's one of the fruits of their renewal. 

TJ: That's right. One of the fruits. One of the fruits. Part of the fruit. Fruit, fruit cake.

That's right. Hey fellas. All right. Anyway, today we are talking about grace stories. You may use the term testimonies in your church. And they are a little bit controversial because handing somebody a mic and saying, Go, can kind of be scary. So Joe, what are you talking about? Exactly. 

Joe: Well, yeah, I probably wouldn't have handed the microphone right to them and just given them the raw, go ahead, send it, baby.

Send it. But a person's grace story specifically tells the glory of God in their life and what he has done in their life. It includes the gospel message. It includes how Christ has changed them, brought them out of their terrible sin, given them the ability to realize their own sin.

They've asked for repentance and the life change that comes after that. And so what you do want to be able to do is you want to be able to walk that person through that, help them clarify their testimony, their grace story, and uh, also to help them clarify what the gospel is so that people can hear it, can understand the gospel.

So you come along and you, and you help that person. But man, I tell you what, as soon as the candle is lit, it starts giving off. Light and grace stories are incredibly powerful and I would say that some of the most powerful grace stories are some of the newest ones because people can. Probably people know what that person was like before and then they see the mighty thing that the Lord has done in their life and the, the result of what that is, 

TJ: I don't know much, but I once was blind and now I see. That is the kind of thing that comes outta people's mouths when they are aware of their sin in the way that Jesus has saved them from it through faith in what Christ has done for for 'em. 

Josh: And I think specifically in a rural place, you know, one of the barriers we see is that everyone knows everybody and everyone's up in everybody's business. And then when someone changes, and it's not just a hypocritical change, right?

But they are genuinely transformed. And there's fruit being born in life. Sure. You're gonna have some people who are cynical and they're like, ah, you know, that's not actually real. But then you're gonna have people that are like, wow. You know, if that could happen to them, maybe it could happen to me.

Right. 

TJ: So here's the challenge though. We have some, sometimes wrongheaded thinking when it comes to testimonies or grace stories. One is you hear the, the Christian kid get up and say, I've got a really boring story. Nothing ever really happened to me, didn't do drugs. Right? Then on the other side you're like, just yesterday I was smoking doobies. And they're just really getting all over that.

So, um, you know, you, you do have these extremes where it's like some people think there's this boring, other people just don't know what to leave out. So how do you, Joe, you've done a really good job of helping our whole congregation grow in their ability to share their testimony. How do you walk people through that so that they kinda know what to say? 

Joe: I think it might not be the most important thing that I say, but it's the first thing that I say.

And this is specifically for like a baptism sort of testimony. I want you to write down your testimony and then we're gonna work through it together, and I'm gonna help you. I might even make some edits. This is your story. I'm not changing your story, but let me help you clarify your story and let me help you clarify the gospel.

We do that every single time before anybody gets up in front of the membership to be able to share their grace story. Not because we wanna change anything, not because we wanna magnify anything, not because we wanna make it more dramatic or less dramatic, but because we wanna make sure that it's clear and you gotta say that the very first thing, don't get so excited and say, oh, your grace story is incredible.

I want you to write it down, and then I want you to share it and get everybody so, so excited. And the Lord has given to you as a shepherd and pastor, probably a little bit better ability to be able to make things clear when it comes to communication. And so the very first thing that you wanna say is, I want to help you make this clear so that people are able to understand, to see what the Lord has done in your life, and to see how glorious he is.

So that's the very first thing that I would say. 

TJ: Yeah. And I think. You know, you're talking specifically about the public sharing of the testimony at church. 

Joe: Yeah, I, yes. Thank you for that clarification. 

TJ: Yeah, and that's helpful. And you know, people, it's their story and, and they're right. If they say, well, this is my story to tell, but the purpose of a great story is not to give you a therapy session so that you can just voice everything that's happened. It's not for you to just, you know, tell a story that magnifies you. It's a story that's. 

Josh: Or, or it's not a story to highlight the church either. Uh oh yeah. Good job. That was gonna be my question. Like, you know, how. I've, I've heard church testimonies that say nothing about Jesus and only what the church did for the person.

Joe: Absolutely. As I've gone to help people work the them through, they've, I've found out that people have fallen in love with the church rather than fallen in love with Jesus. 

Josh: And I'm, I'm not saying don't include, you know, that this saint or this ministry in the church. I'm just saying that can't be your focus.

TJ: The church is a means of grace, but it needs to be seen as that and not the thing that did it. It's just a way that Jesus. Something Jesus used to do it. Instrument Jesus used. Right. So, yeah. I think that there's another category of where we share grace stories. There's really two more. One is in a smaller group setting.

Yep. Where it is more, I'm just sharing my heart with people, but I do wanna make sure I'm magnifying Christ in that. And one of the things that Joe, you've helped, helped us with a lot is working in lament and recognizing a part of the way that God's grace has been made. Evidence in your life is through the hard trials that you've walked through.

So I've heard you encourage people, tell us. Mm-hmm. Tell us the ugly stuff. Why do you do that? 

Joe: I think you've gotta see the depth and the pit where people have come from to really understand what Christ has done. 

TJ: What do you then say to the person who's like, I don't think I've really been in a pit.

Joe: Well, I want to. Figure out what we're, what we're talking about there. You had mentioned earlier, oh my testimony's so boring. I've never smoked Deweys. I've never done that. Praise God. That is incredible. You don't need to make that more dramatic. At that point what you are able to articulate in your grace story, depending upon the situation.

My dad read the Bible to me every single night. I've always known who Jesus is, and then there was just this one time. Through this particular circumstance or through this particular scripture or this particular song, when I came and understood truly who Christ was and what he has done for me, that's an incredible testimony.

So you don't have to drag people through a pit and be like, and manufacture anything. Well, I fought with my brothers and sisters when I was just a little kid, like, that's not what we're we're talking about. But if somebody has a real depth, an anguish, a pain, a hurt, and they're able to, I would say, to share that because there are other people who are listening.

Who are probably in that same pain, anguish and depth of hurt of what that is. And it can be an incredible encouragement to those folks who are out there, who are facing similar things. And it is not magnifying you. It is not glorifying your problems. It is glorifying the Lord who brought you out of those problems, and they can see Christ clearly in there.

So I really do encourage people, be as honest as you possibly can be. Don't drag us into every single thing. I'm certain that there are private things that you don't want to have shared, but give us a sense of where you were at before Christ. 

TJ: And you probably do need to have some level of relationship with somebody where you can share all the private stuff.

Mm-hmm. I think that is, is helpful to you and it is a way of demonstrating God's glory. 

Joe: Here's a perfect example. So, through your leading and, and through, through all of us and, and our understanding of how important these are, so different settings where we have made grace stories very, very important to our church.

Elders retreats where we have had 11 guys spend an hour at a time just walking through the ugly gross details. Small groups, similar things. If, if you've got relational equity buildup in your small group and you actually, great stories help you build relational equity as well. Those are areas where you can share the depth of that.

Sometimes when you're maybe in front of a, a congregation of, of 50, a hundred. 200, 300, where it's a mixed audience and you don't necessarily wanna throw out stumbling blocks for folks, then you can be a little bit more careful, in what you share in that particular case. If you're in, in an evangelism or a discipleship sort of a case where it's you and somebody else, that's when you get real raw.

TJ: Yeah. That's the third one. So how, how do you guys process that when you are thinking of using your gray story as a tool for evangelism? 

Josh: Well, if there's a, I mean, if there's a connecting point that is something that's very hard, that was hard for you to walk through. I think that gives you an opportunity to show how Christ has not only redeemed, but brought healing through something like that.

Amen. So if you've experienced abuse, if you experienced addiction, a cheating spouse, if you experienced addiction, I think that's, that's a moment where you, you allow what Paul says in Second Corinthians five to happen, or, second Corinthians one to happen. Pulling it up now, and as I talk about it, he mentions that,

Blessed to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Suffering is a guarantee for the Christian.

You might not understand why. It might have happened even before your salvation, but God intends to redeem and use even our suffering for the sake of our sanctification and the salvation of others. So you'll have an opportunity to walk through suffering, with someone, um, or, uh, a shared experience.

That may be the thing that God intends to use to draw them to, to Christ. 

TJ: So one of the ways that you can bring renewal. Renewal to your rural church is by talking about the renewal that has happened in your life through Christ and encouraging your people to do the same. So that's the takeaway I I'd like to encourage you to consider is how can I go now into my church and encourage them?

Maybe you pave the way by sharing your own grace story. Maybe you give them chances in members meetings or something like this Sunday school, 

Joe: men's ministry, women's ministry. 

TJ: Yeah. Find those times, capitalize them, and empower your folks to talk candidly about the grace of God in their life for his glory.

Joe: Lemme talk pragmatically for a second as well. And I think also biblically, scripturally. So let's say you've got, okay, you've got a men's breakfast coming up and you, that's one more thing for you to do, one more message for you to prepare at the men's breakfast and, and you want to do a good job, but it's like prior number three or four and it's going to be busy, busy.

Or you could hand it off to somebody else. And as much as they're learning how to do something, it might not end up being the best message. Lemme just share with you. It's something like a men's breakfast. Guys have a very short attention span, and they might finish their pancakes and tune out the message.

But I tell you what, if you get one of them to stand up and share their grace story in front of those other dudes, every single eye will be on them. And it will build so much trust, so much relational ability, and it will glorify God in so many different ways, not just in how he has brought them out, but also in the discipleship, and even evangelistic sorts of things.

So whether that's an men's breakfast, women's breakfast. Take every opportunity, like TJ said, to be able to share these. And at that particular case too, as much as I said at the very beginning in cold open, don't just hand 'em the microphone. You can help them out with this too. And that is a personal, that is one-to-one discipleship with with you and the person who's giving that great story as well.

TJ: That's it. So, hey, before we wrap up today, just wanna encourage you if you've not already signed up for the Brainerd Institute conference, we are meeting in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, October 10th and 11th. We'd love to have you join us. You can fly in into places like Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Syracuse, places that people have actually heard of, and then you can punch in the Google machine.

How do I get to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania? And it'll tell you, and you can come stay here in this beautiful town in the fall and learn more about rural ministry. Be encouraged by other rural pastors and ministry teams. Bring your wife. My wife is gonna host a luncheon for rural pastors wives. During that day, they even get a discounted ticket.

That's how much we love rural pastors wives and it's fall themed treats. I guarantee there'll be something maple there. That is enough to get you through the door. So join us October 10th and 11th here in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. We'd love to have you. 

Joe: I have a plug as well. Okay. If you pastor, are long to have relationships with other pastors in your areas, possibly even sharing grace stories amongst one another's.

We've got something called an EQUIP group and I'd love to help you get those started. Reach out to us and go to brainerdinstitute.com. Connect with us and ask for Joe and I'll help you get equipped Group started. 

TJ: Alright, that sounds great. Hey, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time on Rural Church Renewal.

Joe: Sounds like a sheep over there back and raise your Ebenezer.

TJ: For more resources to help you lead a healthy rural church, head over to the Brainerd Institute website. It's right there at brainerdinstitute.com.