Paul Michaels, director of missionary organization Finish the Mission, was miserable and depressed before he met Christ. He often uses the story of his encounter with Christ to evangelize, but he also uses his story to fellowship with other believers.
Christians should implement this practice of sharing testimonies with other believers into their lifestyle, Michaels said.
At 17, Michaels had rejected Christ, indulging every worldly pleasure: money, popularity, parties, women, athletic success, a new car, a motorcycle, a nice house and alcohol. But he was miserable, and he eventually reached a breaking point.
After a girl at school shared the gospel with him, he researched and considered Christianity. When Michaels cried out to God, God came into his life with the peace, purpose and joy he’d been searching for.
It’s this testimony Michaels uses to celebrate God’s goodness with other believers.
“It’s essential that we share, ‘OK, this is what I was facing, and this is how I saw our living God work,’ and show that he is faithful and loving and powerful and working everything for our good and his glory,” he said. “Sometimes that’s not easy to distinguish.”
Sharing testimonies of God’s work with other believers serves as a powerful reminder of God’s character, Michaels said. Testimonies encourage perseverance by reminding believers that God works through their trials.
Christians don’t regularly share their stories in the Western church, and it’s dangerous, he added.
“One of the biggest beefs I have with the Western church is that we have adopted the value of time that our culture has,” Michaels said.
In America, we want to rush home from church to watch the Bears game instead, he said. We feel too busy to stop and hear one anothers’ stories. It doesn’t feel time efficient.
On the mission field in Nepal, on the other hand, he witnesses the power of regularly sharing testimonies, where efficiency isn’t the highest value.
Nepalese churches recognize their desperate need for God as a church under attack. They see fellowship as more important than time efficiency. They regularly meet in small groups to pray, share testimonies and encourage one another, Michaels said.
We should adopt this practice in America. Unwillingness to obey Scripture and share testimonies reaps consequences when struggles come.
“People feel like their situation is unique, and nobody has shared a similar situation,” Michaels said. “They’re not encouraged and comforted by others sharing what they’ve walked through and how they’ve seen the care of God.”
Those who don’t share testimonies are prey to isolation, discouragement and weakened faith, Michaels said.
The solution?
“Just start doing it,” Michaels said.
Christians may forget to share testimonies because they feel like they have nothing to share, Michaels said.
But walking with God throughout life creates testimonies. People pursuing God wholeheartedly will constantly encounter stories of His faithfulness and glorious work in their lives, he said.
In other words, believers should contemplate the state of their prayer life if their testimony bank feels dry.
“If you don’t walk with God on a day-to-day basis, if you don’t have this dynamic relationship where you’re actually walking with God, then you won’t have much of a testimony to share,” Michaels said. “It becomes a distant message. And that’s probably the biggest reason we don’t have much to testify to, is we’re not really walking with God, we’re not really believing Him to work in that way, experiencing His presence and having answers to prayer.”
If God feels distant, pursue Him until you experience his presence, he said. God reveals Himself to those who seek Him; if people spend time with Him, their life will yield countless stories of His work.
Others have testimonies but feel intimidated to share them. It’s helpful to remember testimonies are just stories told to friends, Naomi Yoder, video project and production manager of Taylor’s marketing department, said. They don’t have to be conversion stories; they can be simple celebrations of God’s work throughout daily life, Yoder said.
“It doesn’t have to be scary,” she said. “Everyone has a story.”
Yoder is working on a Taylor video project highlighting students, their stories and God’s work in their lives. Storytelling is a powerful way to tell testimonies, she said.
Taylor’s campus provides diverse opportunities to share and hear testimonies: chapel, conversations around the loop, chats in the Larita Boren Campus Center (Stu) and residence hall relationships, she said.
Students can implement testimony sharing through dorm events, Violet Smoak, freshman art therapy major, said. As a future personnel assistant (PA) in Bergwall Hall, Smoak plans to host regular testimony nights for her girls.
“It would be really cool if every PA, DA leadership role on every floor implemented testimonies into a regular meeting time,” she said. “It should be on the schedule. I think if we fall into the temptation that, like, ‘Oh, let's just let it happen naturally,’ then sometimes it never happens at all.”
Being intentional to share God’s work often means scheduling it or finding accountability, Smoak said.
Testimonies don’t have to be massive, she said, echoing Yoder. Once, Smoak broke her bike and was forced to leave it outside because of class. When she returned, someone had fixed it.
This was a small testimony, a “God moment” Smoak shared with her friends.
“We put in little deposits of testimonies and experiences, no matter how small,” Smoak said. ”Let's share that no matter how big it is.”
We at The Echo believe students should regularly share testimonies with other believers. As Christians, we must do whatever it takes to see God’s glory. This means obeying the command in Psalm 107:2 to “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so.”
