Last week James and Mary shared their testimony for our community group. I wish you could have all heard it – but what happens at community group… stays at community group. 🙂
As a follow up to last week’s testimony Gaylan shared his testimony for us as well last night – just as awesome.
There’s just something about people sharing their testimony and how God has worked in their life that is encouraging and helps build community. And when we can see others being honest I think it encourages us to be honest as well.
Both weeks I modeled the testimonies after our November series at encounter. Each year 3 or 4 people (or couples) have been interviewed by Brian during the month of November to share their various testimonies. These seem to be some of our most highly attended services as well as our top downloaded podcasts throughout the year. So it was great bringing this idea down a few notches and making it work in our small group. In fact for James and Mary I just used the list of questions that Brian asked them several years back in the early days of encounter.
But I got to thinking last night, this is something that any group can do with little or no preparation – just a willing individual or individuals. The questions may differ but they are built around 3 main questions:
- What was your life like before Christ?
- How did Christ call you to be His disciple?
- What is your life like after coming to know Christ?
Those are the basic questions to build an interview from. Hopefully with people in our community groups we know a little more background of the individuals and we can ask more detailed questions about specific situations – but even with those three questions I think we can all add transparency and honesty to our community groups.
Any other thoughts or ideas that you’ve seen work?
