Sunday, May 02, 2004

In our old homegroup, we had a whole six week period where we had to practice "giving our testimony." We all kind of rolled our eyes when our pastor told us this. To tell someone your story, and to tell it in a way that is real and understandable, was a good thing though. I hate role playing, and this was no exemption, but it was in this case something helpful. I would pretend I don't have a clue to church culture - and the person talking to me would have to tell me their story without using words like "went forward", "I was born again when I was", "washed ", "repented", "redeemed by the blood" and "sanctified". It was surprising how hard it was for some people. It did help sensitize us to Churchese, even if it was a lab type situation.

I was remembering this when we had our first 40 DOP group meeting this week - we have one guy who is a) not a believer and b) not an American. Listening to people answer the questions, I found myself wondering how much of this he was understanding - "I am such a Martha", "I just need to be still and know, you know", "I have to surrender xyz to God" and many more. Good thing Randall is used to translating stuff like that for him :-)

posted by Birgit
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