Mark Greene in an article on the LICC site (Telling Tales of Truth and Transformation) tells the story:
Once upon a time in Scotland, on a long road out of Edinburgh, and passing what was probably the St Johnston football ground, one man said to another man, “You should hear them cheer in there on a Saturday? Why isn’t it like that in church?” And the other man pondered a while and said, “Because they are cheering something that just happened.”
and then goes on to speculate:
...maybe we’ve stopped telling each other what has just happened, what God has just done, what he is doing now in us, through us, what prayers have been answered, what insights grasped, what sins understood, what grace released, what healing lavished, what rescue effected, what life imparted…
For surely, Jesus is not a dead guru but alive, alive, alive.
And to tell the tales of his acts of today is not to diminish the cross nor to elevate ourselves but to proclaim again that he died not only to take away the sins of the world but to inaugurate a whole new way of living. For he was raised from the dead and he sent His Spirit to grant us the resources to live in the power of the Spirit in the days of our flesh. And this he has done. These are the stories, the testimonies to tell to the people who know Jesus and to those who don’t.
Every time we ask for (and always get!) testimony in a service (or our AGM), it's such a positive thing to do - for the people that stand up and speak and for the many more who listen and are reminded that we worship the God who "happens now", not just "back then".
And why don't we do more of it? Because, I confess, it gets squeezed out of our Sunday morning services when we're (as ever) pushed for time...
We need more. Bug me until we get it. Please.
Comments