Sharing Your Personal Testimony | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. All right, so thank you for

coming to this session. Thank you for those who are

here. I know that we have several

church members who aren't feeling great.

And so thank you so much for being here tonight and also for

those who'll be listening online later.

We welcome you and thank you for that.

If you don't have a church home, come see us at Inglewood.

And I hope that you'll listen to the other episodes because each

one of these episodes stair steps on the last one.

I'm going to go through puberty again tonight.

This is going to be fun. Just since that.

I don't think I'll cough that much, but I do think I'm going

to crack. Maybe not Sunday night.

I was very white, so if that makes any sense to you.

But anyway, it was pretty funny. But anyway, so yeah, so each

episode matters. And so you need to go back and

stair step. You need to understand some of

the biblical and theological foundation.

You need to understand how to be engaged in pre evangelism to

where we're actually kind of building relationships to

building relationships, dealing with the barriers that stop us

from sharing our faith. What are those things and why?

And then working through praying for people and then and then

actually leading a conversation to Christ.

That last session we did very, very important because I'm

assuming all of those things are happening to lead to this

moment. I'm not sure this moment is the

same without some of those pieces happening.

And I need to make that really clear so that each one of these

sessions is not some magic bullet.

This is a process that I watch the Holy Spirit take people

through because as I've shared with you before, especially in

our culture here in the United States, you're, you're very

likely going to have to have much more of a dialogical, even

multiple encounter type experience with people than

simply getting people to sit quietly while you share some

presentation to them. Now in the future, we're going

to talk about some of those presentations and how do we make

the best gospel presentation and what does that mean?

We're also going to talk about, because several of you have

asked me this in future episodes not long from now.

We're also going to talk about how do I share with people from

specific backgrounds, everything from cross cultural, different

religion, different age from we need to talk about children a

little bit and family members, because sometimes family members

are the hardest coworkers, that kind of stuff, but also people

who have alternative lifestyle issues in their life.

And how am I going to share with somebody who's gay and doesn't

agree or, or just as making a lot of assumptions about what I

think before we ever have a conversation, et cetera.

So we're going to talk through some of those, those real

situations that some of you are in and have asked me about and

we'll, we'll make sure we tackle that as well down the road.

But for this session, we really need to 0 in and the and the

handout may seem short, but don't let that encourage you

because when I do this, and I actually started doing this back

in the 1980s when I was working for a brief time with the

Oklahoma Baptist State Convention after I had returned

from being in the Philippines. I worked for a season for the

state convention. It's kind of a missionary in

residence working with their student camp as well as is what

they called wind schools in those days, which are that

predates a lot of a lot of stuff for some of you, but that

doesn't matter. But part of what we did was this

personal testimony workshop in a different form.

But I always want to give credit to those people back in the day

who wrote Win School. I'm probably the only human

being that still has that material anywhere in a three

ring notebook. But but it was good stuff and I

always enjoyed this and my students at seminary like this.

People overseas love doing this. I've taught this all around the

world. What we're going to do tonight.

And so I hope that you'll kind of embrace it.

You got to kind of get involved and, and own it.

I'm not going to put you on the spot, but but I do want you to

participate. And you'll, you'll see more

about that in a minute. So let's talk about personal

testimony. This can be very, very powerful.

This is what you're going to hear Sunday from Cambi's

primarily a doctor Sahuwe. You can't say it in English

hardly. You're going to get that back

there. But the Doctor Cambi's is

coming. Dear friend, dear brother,

you'll love him and his wife. And so we're going to hear a

powerful testimony. My testimony is really

convoluted and confused. Some of you have said when are

you going to share your entire testimony with us?

That's a really complicated thing to do because I had a

salvation experience and then I had a massive prodigal

experience and then I had a recommitment experience.

And sometimes it all gets confused a little bit and

there's some pretty dark stuff back there.

I'll talk more a little bit about that in a minute.

So when we we share here some reasons for sharing a personal

testimony. Now, these aren't all the

reasons. These are just a few of the

reasons why you might want to use a personal testimony.

And remember in our culture today, our culture is very story

oriented and, and more than that, there's a proof of

authenticity that they're looking for.

This needs to be something that's real to you.

If this just seems to be an artificial presentation sales

pitch, they're not going to be interested in that.

They've had enough of that in this world.

And I'm going to talk about that when we get to the outline a

whole lot more because this needs to be something that's

real. It needs to be meaningful to

you. So it ought to be natural.

In other words, I, I, I, this is something that is just my story.

You don't have to make up somebody else's story.

This is your story. And so make it as natural and

authentic as you can. And so your testimony is not

going to be the same as my testimony.

And that's OK. And there's not a better

testimony than I. So I've, I shouldn't have said

what I said earlier about one of the most powerful testimonies,

but there's really, you know, every testimony is powerful.

And I've often talked to, especially to students and to

people in, in life to where, you know, my testimony is boring.

I was raised in church my whole life and I, you know, was saved

early in my life and I've been in church the rest of my life

and I've, you know, I've never really done anything except

church in Christianity in my whole life.

You know, and I know people like that.

Man, what a blessing. Don't, don't see that as any

kind of negative. You don't need to be a

rock'n'roll drug dealer before you meet Jesus in order to have

a powerful testimony, right? And so embrace that.

I talked to my kids about that because that's my kids, you

know, and it's like, it's like, you know, don't, don't shy away

from that. You know, embrace that.

To say, this is my not only my whole life, but this is the

foundation of everything that I currently believe in and it

still is. That's really meaningful, you

know? And then some of us are a little

more dramatic and so, but make this as natural as possible.

The other thing about this is it's accessible.

I don't need a booklet. I don't need to memorize a

tract. I don't have to have some gospel

that you, I know this, this is a story that's already here or

ought to be. And all we want to do is try to

help you frame it. I'm not ever expecting you to

actually use the outline I'm going to give you in real life.

The outline is designed to just make you think about it.

I, I don't talk about this and I ought to talk about this and

I'll talk about this to help them along the way.

But, but this ought to be very accessible and easy for you to

do it. It's also a great transition.

And I'll show you this to get to the actual gospel, a gospel

presentation, because there's a difference between my personal

testimony and sharing the whole gospel.

And we're going to talk about how to, how to do both of those

things. But you might find that this is

the, the, this is the thing I have and this is the one thing I

can do in this meeting in the time I have.

And I need to do this to kind of lead them to where they're ready

to hear that. And so there's a lot of

transitional aspects of personal testimony life.

It can also be quick. I'll show you that.

I talk about the two to four minute testimony.

I'm not trying to make you do that.

I would try to make you not do the 40 minute testimony, please.

Most people don't want to hear the 40 minute testimony in a

personal dialogue. People, A have short attention

spans and B, they're usually thinking about themselves and

they don't want to hear that much about you.

And so you, you need to learn how to have a longer version and

a shorter version. I know some of you were trained

in some of this before and previous training on how to

share that, that quick testimony.

But so I actually talked about the two to four minute.

And then when we do it in class and I time people, it's amazing

how some of them did it in less than two minutes.

And you know, it's not by design.

It's just it gets in their head. Now I'm going to show you that

through a little exercise that I'm I'm going to forcibly make

you do. Now we're going to enjoy that

together. It's also, it can be powerful.

I'm telling you because one of the big differences, and I've

shared this story with you before, but like when I was in

Belize and I was talking to the guy in the store and he said

this is real to you, isn't it? And you just got to understand

that for a lot of people that functional aspect of religion

doesn't exist. In other words, what does the

religion actually produce in your life?

We call that the functional part of a religion.

What is its function? What does it produce?

Peace, hope, joy, assurance, strength, those kinds of ideas.

And for many of these people, it's all fear based because

their religion is a works based background or their non religion

is works based. People who claim to be atheists

or people who claim to be agnostics often live by a works

based morality. In other words, they're they're

somehow trying to balance their karma.

They're trying to balance the good versus the evil.

And if I do do more good than than evil things in my life, I'm

a good person. And so they define it by, by

actions or attitudes or words, etcetera.

And they don't recognize what grace is.

And so one of the most powerful things about true Christianity

is grace. It's the, one of the most

powerful things about true Christianity is that ought to be

transformative. Now let me go back, I'm stair

stepping here all the way back to relationship number one and

relationship #2. If you haven't been here, here's

what I mean. We have to be engaged in a very

intentional relationship with God and his people.

Relationship #1 and then secondly, then we'll be ready to

engage in a very intentional relationship with the world and

its people. So the more I'm engaged in

relationship #1, the better my relationship too will be.

And evangelism ought to be the overflowing of relationship #1

into relationship #2 But if you're not spending time with

God, if you're not walking with him, if you're not in His word,

if you're not following the seven essentials of discipleship

or whatever framework you you have similar to that, if you're

not doing that, it's going to be a rare thing for there to be an

overflow in an evangelistic way in your life to where that's

going to have any power. It's going to be mechanical,

could be robotic, but it's not going to be powerful.

Because who saves people? All right, God does.

I can't save people. And so I need the power of the

Holy Spirit working in this situation.

And if I'm not connected to him, if I'm not paying any attention

to him, if I'm not listening to him, this doesn't work.

And so the power isn't mine. The power isn't my dramatic

story. The fact that I've been a bag

collector, I've been a bag man. You may not know what that term

is. Look up, look up mafia, look up

organized crime. I've been a bag man, a bouncer

and a boxer, right? And that's part of my

background. And the fact that then all of a

sudden it not now I'm not well, most days I thought about

moonlighting a little bit, but that doesn't mean that my

testimonies are more powerful than that sweet person who grew

up from the nursery on in the Baptist Church.

I mean, what a what a legacy to be thankful for.

It just means their testimonies are going to be different.

I might be able to relate to somebody who's violent and, and

an alcoholic. I might be able to relate to

somebody in some specific issue, but but you'll be able to relate

to other people and God's going to orchestrate that.

He's going to put you in those places where these people need

you. The other thing is that if you

go to the next one, the next one that we see is, is this is very

biblical. Paul shares his testimony in at

least two different places in the book of Acts.

And I didn't make slides for all these because it's it's very

lengthy. And so in Acts 22, he starts off

in verse 3 and he says I am a Jew born in Tarsus.

And he goes all the way through his experience of persecution

and the Damascus Rd. experience. He replays all of this in this

chapter. He's telling this as he shares

with the people and he talks about how he was struck down by

this bright light and he gives the exact, the exact same words.

Let's see earlier that Jesus speaks to him and, and this,

this give and take. And then he even talks about

Ananias who had to come and restore his sight.

So he goes through this whole thing, this whole thing in Acts

22. And then you flip over a couple

pages to Acts 26 and he's before Agrippa.

This is during some of the trials that he has to go through

as well. And again, it's starting in

verse 12. In this connection, I journeyed

to Damascus. Damascus with the authority and

Commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw in the

way a light from heaven. So again he tells this whole

story. Saul, Saul, why are you

persecuting me? Who are you?

Lord? I'm Jesus, whom you're pretty.

I mean. He tells this whole story again

word for word and then ends up with saying, therefore, O King

Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but

declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and

throughout the all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles

that they should repent and turn to God performing deeds in

keeping with their repentance. And for this reason he's been

arrested, which led us to last Sunday's sermon.

And so we see that it's if there's a biblical model.

And so I encourage you to go back and read Acts 22 and and

read Acts 26 and to, to review what all happened there.

But let me give you a couple of pointers before we dive into

this. So when, when we're going to

share a personal testimony, here are a couple of things I would

say. Here's how to share your

personal testimony a couple of ways #1 focus on God, focus on

what he did, not necessarily what you did right.

This is a story that you're trying to get them to understand

about him, not necessarily about you.

And and you really want to focus on conversion and post

conversion life, which is often the opposite of what happens in

testimony life. Often in testimony life, you

hear a whole lot more about being a bagman, A bouncer and a

boxer and not so much about So what.

And it's just So what that I'm going to force you in an outline

in a minute to think more about because this has to be real

today. And so some of you, let's just

see for a minute. How many of you were saved

before the age of 12? Lift up your hand and leave them

up before the age of 12. OK, Leave your hands up.

How many of you were saved before the age of 16?

How many of you were saved before the age of 18?

Everybody keep lifting their hands up.

Who had them lifted up before? OK, now lower your hands.

How many of you were saved after 25?

And there's several of you, but statistically, most people are

saved before the age of 18. In fact, it's a strong high

statistic, which is why student ministry and children's ministry

become so important in in our life here.

And so I'm thankful for some of you who beat the odds.

You know, and I know some folks here who would say way later in

life, which is really rare and wonderful.

But what's interesting about that is, is that often times our

testimonies will focus when I was 8 years old, I went to camp

or I was at vacation Bible school.

Again, wonderful part of the story and it needs to be shared.

But at the same time is that is that everything that that person

needs to hear, they need to hear.

So what? So you know that this isn't just

for children. This isn't just something that

happens to kids who were raised in it, that this is actually

something stronger than that. So we need to focus on

conversion and post conversion life.

I'll help you with that in a minute.

And and so we don't overemphasize that pre

conversion drama necessary because what we want to do is we

want to focus on now. And that may seem odd to you

because often times when you think of personal testimony, you

think about when I was saved. Now, that's a big, vital, vital

part of the story, obviously. But I'm telling you, in our

culture today, So what? Because they look at people who

call themselves Christians or they look at churches and they

don't see any difference. They've got to understand the

difference. There needs to be a difference

between US and people who aren't us.

In a sense that makes sense. And so the way we live and our

value system, the way we make decisions, even even our

politics, no, I'm not going to go down that cuss word Rd. but

all of this stuff is affected by our faith system.

Our worldview is affected by our faith system.

One of the things that we've got to talk about is culture at some

point a little bit, really understand what that is because

we aren't all the same and people who are moving here

aren't all going to be the same. And so we need to help them to

understand how this makes a difference in my life today.

Now, here's the trick. If it's not, if it doesn't, if

you're not really walking with God, if you're not really

engaged in relationship number one, if that really isn't a

massive overflow in your life, then your testimony is going to

be shallow. It's going to be weak, it's not

going to be current. It's going to be some old story,

right? And So what we want to do is we

want to make sure we're current. This is why everything connects.

Why such an emphasis on discipleship this fall tour?

We want everybody walking in a certain way, learning in a

certain way, doing things and and understanding and becoming

things so that your testimony will be true and real.

We want to be authentic. We want to be real, right?

We don't want this to be some fake show.

My goal isn't just to run people through something, to have some

number. The goal here is that we're

actually seeing transformation take place and lives changed.

And so we, we want to focus upon that.

So if you'll flip your page over, well, no, I think you've

got it on the front page right now.

Stay on the front page. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

So let's talk about this outline for a moment, then we'll flip it

over in a minute. So if you'll notice it spells

out what? Yeah, you're going to get tired

of that before this is over because there's more of these.

But, but again, it just helps me to remember some things.

I don't actually expect you to necessarily follow a reach

outline. I do want you to think about

these categories and how these need to be worked in based upon

the specific conversation you're in with whoever you're talking

to. Because for some of these

things, they're going to know this already or some of these

things are, you know, there's, you know, are they strangers?

Are they friends as your neighbor?

You know, how are you going to get to this point?

But one of the things we need to talk about is first of all, we

need to talk about the recognition of my need for

salvation took place when or because now every one of these

is going to be a complete the sentence.

And one of the assignments that I give in my master's level

class and my bachelor's level class in the past was you had to

write this out. This is a paper, A2 page paper

that you had to write out and you actually had to use my

outline. And you had to complete the

sentence. So they had actually all all

have the same outline. And they would complete, you

know, complete the sentence with a little paragraph, complete the

sentence with a little paragraph.

And you'd be amazed at how they didn't do that very often.

And I would tell them in class, if you don't use my outline,

you're going to get a bad grade. And still somebody would send in

A10 page rant about their whole life, you know, No, no, stop

that. Just follow the outline once.

It'll be OK. So this is the question, this is

the discussion. Sometimes it's hard for some

people. How did you know you needed to

be saved? When did you know that?

Now for those who were saved at a young age, this becomes a

little blurry sometimes. And I get that this, this part

might not be as long as others because it's a little blurrier.

I, I, I, you know, I, I knew about Jesus before I could walk,

right? And so I knew about sin.

I knew about these concepts, but when was the personal awareness

of, of the guilt of your sin, the conviction that I needed a

Savior? This is a really important

question and it's an important question for me to talk to other

people about because a, I'm going to have to define a lot of

things for them. And we're going to talk about

down the road. Here's a list of things you're

going to have to define for lost people out there.

One of them sin, they're, they're not going to agree with

you about what sin is, right? Because they're not going to

agree with you about what the Bible is.

And so again, starting in January on midweek, we're going

to do a huge study. I'm going to, we're going to

talk about, I got to talk about revelation and inspiration, not

the book, but of the Scripture. Again, just for briefly, but I

want to talk about how do we get the Bible?

I want to talk about the different translations that we

use. Two people asked me tonight what

translation I used and and why we have different translations.

I want to talk about how to observe Scripture, how to

interpret Scripture, how to apply Scripture, how to present

Scripture. We're going to do all that on

Wednesday night. So it'll be a great study.

It'll help you in your personal Bible study.

It'll help those of you who are teachers.

But how do I recognize? When did the Holy Spirit ZAP me,

knock me to the ground on my Damascus road?

And I knew I was lost, right? And that's an important part of

this. And so I, I, I would rather talk

about that recognition than simply save my life before

Christ. OK.

Because I, I, I don't, I mean, it's not that I don't care, but

I really don't care about your life before Christ too much.

You know, I mean, I don't want to emphasize that.

So you can sit there and build that into here.

You know, I was drunk one night and God spoke to me.

You know, I mean, whatever it is for me, I was about to kill a

man with my bare hands. That's the whole another subject

better. You really don't need to hear my

testimony probably, but then #2 eternal life began the eternal

life with God began the moment I responded to Christ and accepted

him as Lord and Savior. OK, when was that you know on at

whatever you need to make that transition.

Now for some of you who have this a different a

soteriological angle. If you want to change that to

say eternal life with God the the the moment I began the

moment I responded to Christ accepting me and that either

meant something to you or it didn't.

You can do that too, but this is when you were saved.

When were you saved where, how what happened.

It's an important part of the story, regardless of what age,

regardless of where you were. Then we get to the Third Point

where accepting Christ changed my life from that moment on.

Because, or you could say being accepted by Christ again if

you're in a different theological angle.

But after I'm saved, this is what it means.

Now this gets confusing with .4. I know it.

I admitted I understand it. I go through this all the time,

and so one of the things that I'm trying to help people

understand here, number three, are things that would be true of

every Christian. So in other words, just shout

something out after you're saved.

What do you have say that again, cleansed.

What else? Eternal life, peace, hope,

forgiveness, Holy Spirit, right? So these are things, these are

the general things that almost any Christian could probably

say. That's what I'm looking for.

They need to be true for you. But in other words, the, the

answers on #3 a lot of Christians, we could probably

say the same thing. Now, if you, if, if you started

off, for example, let's say I'm a, I'm a raging violent human

being who drinks too much. And then after I saved, I'm not

a violent, angry person who drinks too much anymore.

I mean, you do have specific things pre and post that you can

talk about that makes sense. But these are also those general

things. All right #4 is the key.

And believe it. Don't believe it.

It's the key in our culture today.

You've got to include #4 most personal testimony outlines

don't have this number four. And it's a mistake because those

folks out there will listen to everything else That's

wonderful. That's just great for you.

I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for you.

But what they've got to hear is that it hasn't ended.

It didn't stop the moment I was saved.

Something started the moment I was saved because I'm still

saved. I'm still being saved.

I will be saved. And so Christ makes a difference

in my life today because or how now, that only works if you're

talking to Jesus today. That only works if you're

praying. That only works if you're

engaging the Bible. That only works if you're

worshipping him. That only works if you're

serving him and you're walking with him.

You have that personal time with him on a daily basis.

So this is where I go back to leading a conversation to Christ

where's now I can sit there and say just this morning God showed

me in his word exactly what we're talking about right now.

Just just Sunday, the preacher in between snotting up the

pulpit and and he had to be in the second service.

First service I did OK. Second service, my nose went

athletic. I'm telling you, it just ran.

It was horrible. I also dehydrated by the time I

got home dehydrated. I'm telling you.

Thank you all for your patience. Yeah, there was a moment in that

second service from like, should I just stop grossing everybody

out? So anyway, so but last Sunday,

the preacher said, or in my connect group more likely

somebody said, and these are these connecting points.

See, he makes a difference in my life today.

Now, some of the same words, hope and joy and peace and

forgiveness, they still work right there.

If you really are thinking about him, He's restored a broken

person and he continues to do that.

And every single day I have to spend time with him for him to

do that right? Every single day I, I, I have to

be in his, in his word. I have to be in his presence

because he makes a difference in my life every single day.

That's either a true statement or it didn't.

And so it's hard for somebody who's not a true disciple

walking with Christ to live evangelistically.

I'm not saying you can't do evangelism.

You can go out and make a visit and you can recite words, but to

live evangelistically, to be evangelistic and not simply do

evangelism, here's the whole point.

It's just an overflow of my walk with God.

And so I do pray that Christ is making a difference in your life

today. And I hope that you even have an

awareness of it. I hope you have a consciousness

of that, that you don't zip through the day so quickly.

I mean, here we are at midweek, middle of the work week for some

of you STEM. Are you so tired working so hard

all day long and you come here anyway, You know, are you taking

the time to ask him and to thank him for the difference he made

in your life today? Each day is extremely precious

and we don't want to waste it. You tracking with me.

All right. Then you get to H Has anything

like this ever happened to you? This is my transition.

Yeah. I don't care if you use that

sentence or not. I make them in my paper.

To use that sentence, they have to close their everybody's final

sentence in the paper. Is anything ever.

Is anything like this ever happened to you?

They all have to finish the paper with the same sentence.

If they don't Doctor red ink goes to work has anything like

this. Would you like to know more

about Jesus how to trust in him? So now I can follow which will

be our next session. We're going to start talking

about this now, man, I've set him up.

We're now we can actually talk about what the gospel is right.

This is all pre evangelism is a precursor.

There's some evangelism mixed in your testimony, but we're going

to get the real hardcore evangelism next time when we

start talking about here's what a person actually needs to hear

in order to be saved. You got lost friends.

You ought to make them come. It won't be next Wednesday

because of Thanksgiving. We don't meet next week.

But whenever we come back together again in whatever that

is, 2028 or whatever it is now, in a couple weeks, I don't know

the date, but in a couple of weeks.

So, you know, this is a great time to bring your lost friends

or neighbors because even though they were they, they'll think

you're coming to a personal evangelism training.

We're going to be outlining the gospel, so you need somebody to

hear it. Put them in a headlock, get them

here. All right, Now, here's the

question. Will you play along with me and

participate? Now, I appreciate the fact that

some of you have intentionally spread out and you did this.

You actually shared this with us in order to cover every section

of prayer. Thank you so much for doing

that. Now, I'm going to suggest that

you move closer to people. Now, don't leave that you don't.

I'm not. Nobody's marking your name down

if you don't move, but I'm going to lead us through a fun

exercise, and I want to show you what time looks like.

We do this all the time. It's usually pretty full of

laughter and enjoyable. So I would appreciate it if you

could get in groups of three or so because and you may not get

to go every single time we have a round, so to speak, but try to

get with with about three people.

If some of you are with four, it'll be all right, but you may

not get to do every single one of these.

Now here's what we're going to do.

I'm going to put a a stopwatch on up here.

And again, don't don't, don't worry about it.

Nobody going to nobody going to get mad at you about doing

nothing. Just just enjoy listening to

others. Get to know your friends,

because what I want to do is I want to show you time frames.

I want you to understand what 30 seconds is.

I want you to understand what 45 seconds is because I'm going to

show you how much you can say in 30 seconds.

I don't have time to share testimony with people.

Let's just find that out. Let's just see.

But this is also an exercise where it warms people up to

share about things that are easy.

So again, let's go back to leading a conversation to

Christ. We're talking about the mundane,

talk about the everyday stuff, and then we're going to

transition our way over to more spiritual things.

So. In your little group, figure out

whose birthday is closest to Christmas.

I don't care if it's before or after.

All right. Didn't ask for your birthplace

or the story of your, your arrival, just your birthday.

You get to go first. If you don't feel comfortable

going first, just say Amen. We're going to go in a clockwise

direction. If you don't feel like saying

anything, just say Amen. It's a word of agreement.

It's a word of affirmation. We'll just go to the next person

because here's all you're going to do.

You see it on the screen for 30 seconds.

This is me stalling for you for 30 seconds.

I just want you to talk about your favorite food.

What's your favorite food? What I mean, if you had, if you

can have anything you want on your birthday from anywhere in

your life, anywhere you've ever been, what dish would you like

to have? Now, here's what's going to

happen when I say go. We're going to count.

This clock's going to go to 30 seconds.

Now, whether you're mid sentence, mid word, or mid

breath, when I say next, the next person starts.

All right, everybody's talking about the same thing.

Everybody's just talking about their favorite food.

Don't worry about the screen, Just talk about your favorite

food. Everybody's doing that right

now. And I'm going to let us go 3 or

4 rounds. OK?

Christmas baby, you go first on your mark.

Get set, go. Now everybody just stop.

Everybody just stop. I didn't say next, just stop.

I didn't give you good enough instructions.

I've been listening. My goal is that you talk for the

whole 30 seconds. So this is my favorite food.

Here's why it's my favorite food.

So the one person talk for 30 seconds if you can.

Now, again, no pressure. We love you.

We're glad you're here. Don't sneak under the chairs to

escape. There's no reason to do that.

Just hurt your knees. You'll be all right.

All right, So the next person get ready on your market said

go. Next.

All right, everybody stop now. I know some of you in groups of

four, so one person didn't get to share yet, but you just get

ready. You're next.

Next up, if your groups are three, you start over again.

Now, 30 seconds. Let's talk about this for a

minute. How long was 30 seconds?

Half a minute. That's good.

I actually have people who run out of things to say in 30

seconds. It's amazing how much you can

say in 30 seconds if you're focused.

Now let's up it to 45, 45 seconds.

Now I'm going to let me do that. I'll do a Texas 2 step for just

a second. Let's talk about your favorite

vacation, someplace you went to see.

Now some of you will have to define vacation to somebody.

Probably you've heard of that. Not sure what one of those is.

Wish, wish you owned one. They're, you know, the heard

they're good to eat. So you all think about what one

of those is. But for 45 seconds you went

somewhere, you saw something, even if it was the fair

somewhere you went somewhere sometime and saw something.

Now see if you can talk for 45 seconds on the mark.

Get set, go. That's.

Next. Game going on, Fish.

Next, heard luau somewhere. Next, we'll let the next one go

if you're group of four. Stop.

All right. Was 45 seconds longer than 30?

Still not long enough For how many?

Was it too long? Yeah, I got that.

I see those hands. Thank you for the testimony.

So, so think about this. We're talking about just general

food stuff, talking about a personal experience.

Now, now what if I said what just what's your favorite verse?

Or you know, what's a favorite verse?

Maybe the favorite verse is a bad way to put it.

They're all, they're all good verses, but think of an

important verse in your life. Whoever's next is going to go

next. So and, and what if we had a

whole minute for you to share? This is my favorite verse and

This is why it's my favorite verse.

Can you do this? You OK?

This is my favorite verse. This is why if you don't know

any other verse, just John 316 be good, be good.

Jesus wept. You know, whatever you got to

do. John 647 whosoever believes has

eternal life. There's another one.

So if you need one, there you go, The Lord is my shepherd, I

shall not want, but it is a good one, might be yours.

So talk about it for a minute. This is me stalling just for a

second to give you time to think.

Those of you listening online need to look in the mirror and

do all these things three times in a row on your mark.

Get set, go. Next.

Next. One more next.

Good. All right, everybody stop.

I know some of your groups have more people, so on the next

slide, just pay attention. We're not going to try to do all

this tonight, but I want you to see how this would play out.

Look at your outline now in your handout now with this, this warm

up, this kind of training experience in timing and time

frames. I recognize that in your actual

testimony, there may not be equal time given to each point.

In other words, you're recognition of, of when I knew I

needed to be saved, maybe longer or shorter than the actual

experience of being saved and things like that.

I get all that. But for the sake of this

exercise, and you can see how you could do this with your

connect groups. You could do this with your

family, you could do this with student ministry, and they're

doing it by the way, and, and children, etcetera, to teach

them how to begin to share this. And so let's, let's take one of

these anyway and, and let's do one of them.

Does anybody have a strong feeling on which point of the

outline they'd like to talk about the most?

You want to talk about your recognition of, of when you were

lost? You want to talk about when you

were saved? You want to talk about after

that. All right, here's what we're

going to do. Let's do 2:00 and 4:00.

We'll do 2 and 4, so let's go to two now that that you're

presuming you've already told him.

I'm a horrible Pagan Sinner who was lost, right?

Rock'n'roll hitman for the Mafia.

Whatever, sometime I'll share my testimony.

But so this is the story of when you were saved, right?

So you if you need to do a little intro to that, that's

fair. But can you talk for a whole

minute about the moment you were saved?

Let's find out on your mark. Get set, Go.

Yeah, go. Sorry.

Next, I actually think I gave you a minute and a half, but

anyway, when are you paying attention?

That's funny. Next.

Next. All right, let's go ahead and

stop that round. Let's go to .4.

Look at #4 and here's a good discipline to follow.

Start. Whatever you're going to say

with Christ makes a difference in my life today because or how

or whatever the next word needs to be, it'll it'll just help you

focus. And so let's see what you can

say in one minute about what Jesus Christ has meant to your

life today. All right, this will bring it

fresh brings it right now makes it authentic and your mark.

You say go. Next.

Next. All right, let's go ahead and

stop that. I know some of you shared and

some of you didn't get to listen the way this would work in a

full born full day workshop, which is something that I have

done in church life. We may do more of this later is

obviously you would go through all the points.

Then I like to mix everybody up and share the whole thing to

where you put the whole testimony together.

What I found is even though logically you would think that

would be 4 minutes long, what I find is is it's much quicker

than that. In actuality, because of

transitions, it actually gets down to sometimes 2 minutes, 3

minutes. That's not a goal.

I'm not trying to get you to less than a 5 minute testimony.

I do think it's a handy tool to have a less than 5 minute

testimony that you can share with people, people that you're

in relationship with an ongoing basis that they're more willing

to sit and listen to longer stories about your life.

And you may not even do all this at once.

You may be telling part of the story over 1 cup of coffee and

another part of the story over the next cup of coffee.

I get all that. But to be able to put these

pieces together and what I really want to see happen is I

want you to connect this last part of the testimony back to

your walk with Christ because this this doesn't just need to

be an experience at children's vacation Bible school.

It's wonderful. I love vacation Bible school.

I'm so glad that you were saved at vacation Bible school really

AM and look forward to in fact, we have meetings today about

doing multiple vacation Bible schools with some of our church

plant plants and partners. So, but down the road, this

needs to be fresh. And so especially when you get

to be older, it still needs to be something that's meaningful

today. It's not just a religion, it's

not just a ritual, it's not just some duty list I'm walking

through. This is a live, dynamic

relational experience that I'm having in my walk with Christ.

That makes sense. Did anybody hear something

incredibly powerful tonight from somebody that maybe you didn't

even know before tonight? Any or something really sweet

and powerful? What?

What did you hear back there? Shouted out anybody?

Don't embarrass him, but just say something good.

God's mercy. A walking miracle.

Yeah, it's good stuff. Jesus saves.

He does. So years ago.

This story will not make sense, but be par for the course for

most of mine. Years ago, we actually had a

mime. I said the word right, a mime

MIMEA Christian mime come to do a thing for a student thing.

Now he had been at the camp and he did some very meaningful,

even emotional, but very spiritual meaningful drama

experiences as a mime, right? And, and so the, the, the kids

loved him and they wanted to have him.

So we had this huge night and we probably had 7-8 hundred kids in

this room, youth in the room and and he's doing his thing now.

He here this gets weirder. So he had a microphone, he had a

headpiece kind of like this a little different because at the

end of his thing, he actually gave a, an invitation.

So we need to head go ahead and have the thing on him throughout

the whole experience so that at the end he he could give the

invitation. And the sanctuary had this,

these again, these big steps wrap around balcony, big steps

coming down, kind of a tunnel in the back.

And the sound booth was like this one here, but way up high

in the back up, up high and lifted up right.

And my youth pastor had turned his microphone on and then had

come down to introduce him. And there was nobody in the

sound in the sound booth. So lesson number two lesson #1

don't give them, don't give them mine.

Don't, Don't invite a mime. Listen to no, don't give a mime

a microphone. Lesson #3 don't abandoned the

sound booth. So he did some costume changes.

So last Wednesday night, after we were done, I was talking with

someone and I appreciated the fact that one of our beloved

servants came running down here to tell me that they could hear

me in the bathroom and in the lobby because even though I was

muted in here, I really wasn't off and I was being broadcasted

all over the building. Well, this mime went backstage

to change outfits and I guess he had a sinus infection and he

cleared out whatever that was that was congested to him.

I mean, it echoed through the holy moment of great drama.

Here's the point. Don't give a microphone to him.

People are listening. People are watching even when

you don't know they are. They are now.

Fortunately, what I was saying last week was hopefully a

blessing. And there's absolutely nothing I

was saying that was confidential.

We were having a good conversation.

But but people are watching you whether you believe it or not.

And if they know that you think you're a Christian or you claim

to be a Christian or you are a Christian, they're going to

watch even more. And in our society today,

unfortunately, they're also going to try to pick you apart.

If they don't believe, they want us to be hypocrites.

They want us to fail. They want this to not be true,

because if this is true, they're in trouble and they don't want

to deal with point #1 on your outline.

They don't want to ever come to the place where they recognize

that I'm lost and that I really need something greater than

myself to get through this. Now, many of them actually

believe that already, but they'll never admit it.

They know that many of them, but they're too cowardly or they're

too afraid, or they're, they're too egotistical or they're too

masculine. There's too much bravado,

there's too much pride. There's something I'm not.

I can't ever say that to anybody else.

So the more you can disarm them with your real story, what'll

happen is, is that if you begin to share these kinds of things

with them, you'll be amazed at what they begin to share with

you. It opens up a gate of trust, of

authentic relationship, of actual dialogue to where

suddenly they might even be interrupting your point #2 to

say, you know, I wondered if I had an experience like, you

know, you're going to get into this, that you're going to learn

a lot about them. Because remember what we've said

before, You got to listen and you got to pay attention.

Be honest with people, be authentic with people, be real

with people, but also don't be afraid to tell them about Jesus.

Now, next time we meet won't be like this.

It'll be back to normal, more or less, because we've got to

examine what must a person know in order to be saved, what

actual content makes up what we would call a gospel presentation

in a pretty complete form. We're going to look at Bible

stories. We're going to look at biblical

content. We're going to be working out a

framework for I need to make sure I'm talking about this and

this and this if at all possible.

I don't want to get hung up on the formula.

If all you can share is about what Christ has done for you and

you lay John 316 on them, you go for it and let God work.

But if we can share the best we can, if we can intentionally

prepare for, let's do it and let's be the most equipped we

could be. Thank you very much for

participating in this tonight. I know it's awkward.

I know it's weird. I know some of you love it, so

you're welcome. I know some of you hate it, so

you're welcome. Let me pray for it.

Father, we thank you so much. Father, I think about the fact

that tonight is someone shared about that point #2 it might

have been the first time they ever verbalized that to another

human being. It might have been the first

time they actually ever shared out loud about when you saved

them. I know that's often true in a

group this size. I know that's true even in my

classes, that it's the first time somebody's actually put

into words out loud when you saved them.

So, Father, I pray that they will feel your great pleasure

for doing that and that they'll be strengthened by that.

They'll be encouraged by that. I can do this, Father, we can do

this. We don't have to be afraid.

And Father, strengthen us. Go before us.

Help it to be obvious to us when we have the opportunity.

And Lord, I pray we'll have the opportunity tomorrow.

Thank you, Father in Christ's name, Amen.

Thank you so much for listening today, and I also hope that

you'll go to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.