Testimony Meetings

The church culture which nurtured me as a boy seems like something which belonged to another world.  Certainly, it belonged to another era.  A common occurrence, particularly on Sunday night when worship was filled with gospel hymns from "The Cokesbury Hymnal," was a testimony service when the sermon was replaced by one person after another standing up in a spontaneous fashion to give a personal testimony.    

It was always a lively time when heads were constantly turning and the young had an opportunity to hear a word from the older members of the congregation.  Of course, not everyone stood to speak, but as Sunday arrived and another Sunday came even some of the younger ones would dare to stand and offer a word about a beginning faith in Jesus.  It was a version of today's participatory worship which was sometimes filled with the ordinary, but often a touch of the Spirit's power broke in among us.   

As a pastor I often looked to the past and called forth the opportunity for the gathered people of God to share their faith with one another.  Many greeted such a moment with stony silence while others gathered up their courage and offered a word or two about the way God was being experienced in their lives.  Not all the things we remember from the church's past merit repeating.  Some of what is done in one way at one time is often done in another at another time.  Sharing how God is at work in our hearts is one thing which could still bring power into the presence of God's gathered people.