Chapter 32 is about seeing the place of your story in God's Story.

Its about preparing and beling able to share your story.

(Realistically this may take more than one week to do but feel free to do that. If you meet over the school holidays you can take several weeks to do this.

When it comes to sharing your story, a lot of people, don’t know where to start…

Like the bible… they try and explain everything and end up rambling about events that aren’t helpful.

This might sound something like:

Well I was born in 1932 and I rode my pet dinosaur to school, it was a different era back then you see… and then we moved from timbucktoo to Wangaratta or was it warnambool, now I think of it It might have been woolloongabba…

The hearer quickly loses attention.

Remember everyone’s favorite subject is – themselves! Which means we find it easy to talk a lot about our lives in all their detail… but when it comes to sharing our testimony, we are trying NOT to do that. 

So, if you ever are having a conversation with someone, and they ask you, “why do you go to church?”, or “I have no idea why a person would want to be ‘religious?” Then ask them, directly, “do you mind if I spend 2 – 3 minutes sharing with you my story, in response to your query?”

Most people are happy for you to share your story, as it’s your story – it’s personal. It isn’t threatening. In fact, your story is often the most powerful ‘living’ testimony to Jesus, and as such, is a valuable tool in the kit-bag of sharing faith.

So how do we do that?

The attached guide are notes I took about sharing your testimony. Sometimes this is done in the public setting – like a church – but we want to be able to do this as part of an everyday conversation with whosoever, and so it needs to be easily shared, and relatable.

Remember the goal is to keep it succinct, to the point and include a brief description of the gospel.

The general gist is:

1)    Introduction – something attention grabbing ‘I should have died but…’ you know that feeling when?’

Think of a one line introduction that’s a bit out there… (keep it truthful!)

For example, one of my prison chaplains lived in South Africa and took a photo of Nelson Mandela which was published in the New York times. So he (truthfully) would go around and tell people that he was a published international photographer of head’s of state!

2)    Your life before coming to faith (or maybe, your life coming to faith…)

We don’t want to glorify in the sinfulness of our lives. We want to acknowledge that and share about what life without Jesus is like – the goal here is to make your life ‘relatable’ to the hearer; not putting them down and coming across as judgmental but simply recognizing that you had a need for God’s salvation. It could be something like: 

I found life was incredibly hard work. There is a relentlessness to it – work, houses, kids, politics. I found that I was forever working but I felt like I was not getting ahead – you know? 

I lived for myself. I pursued money and pleasure and ultimately that’s all that mattered to me.

I struggled with confidence and found that I couldn’t deal with people…

The point is not to talk about ‘our issues’ or try and present the gospel as a magic wand that ‘fixes’ everything, but rather to simply share your life experience in a way that is succinct and relatable to the hearer.

3)    The Gospel – explain where you heard the gospel, what it is (this needs to be concise, not the whole 31 weeks of the story!) We also want to include the key-points of the gospel:

I remember hearing about a God who loves me and seemed to answer my question of purpose.

Or

At a church service I heard about a God who loves enemies – not good people – but people who were opposed to God and lived as if He didn’t exist … like I was living – but he loved them so much that his son took their place and that really struck me. No one does that! I discovered that -

·      God created,

·      we had all rebelled,

·      God promised and delivered in Jesus.

·      His death in my place…

·      I had to make a choice to follow him…

4)    What’s changed – I now live as a follower of Jesus (and that’s a good thing!)

Even though it looks like going to church and ‘following rules’, it’s actually all about a relationship with the one who made me, who knows me - where I am free and able to be vulnerable about life and find meaning and purpose…

5)    The challenge / invitation. That’s my story, but what about you? A simple bible verse such as John 3:16, or Romans 10:13 or another Scripture would be helpful to share.

Can I share this one verse with you? “whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved“ (Romans 10:13) All we have to do is ‘repent and accept’.

 God is good and invites us to discover our true meaning and purpose in him. In fact, God so loved the world that he gave …

Take some time now to think through your story following the above guidelines. It might be helpful to spend some time to write this out.

If it takes up more than 1 page, it’s probably too long. Remember our goal is to keep it simple, relatable – so 3 minutes max.

If you think you can keep it to that, take turns sharing your story as part of your small group.

Let people give you feedback – if you’re waffling or drifting down a tangent – don’t be offended! It takes PRACTISE!

And remember – in our small group, we can share in a way that is more intimate and vulnerable. This isn’t about perfection, or who has the ‘better’ story.

Take the time to share with one another (be brave!) and pray for opportunities to share your story.