This weekend I posted about our feelings of loss as regards leaving FPC-Brandon, the community where we invested 17 amazing years. It’s important to acknowledge loss, because grief is a key element in understanding – and celebrating – just how good our time was. In other words, not experiencing grief would tell a much sadder story.

THE STORY CONTINUES! That said, I’d like to open today’s post with a quote from an email I received this morning from one of the Wake Forest Presbyterian Church members:

 I had forgotten what it was like to sit in the parking lot in a line of cars to leave the church after a service. I used to hate it, but now it’s great to do it again. You and Rebekah are a real blessing to our church and the Wake Forest community. 

Sometimes it’s these kind of messages, subtle affirmations that draw attention to the simple fact of new life, that communicate the most tellingly. There’s a scripture from Acts that Rebekah and I both like to quote; it points out exactly what I’m talking about:

Peter and John responded, “It’s up to you to determine whether it’s right before God to obey you rather than God. As for us, we can’t stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

In a court of law, what the witness has seen and/or what the witness has heard is the only testimony that really counts.

WITNESSES: We were talking about this at Rebekah’s Wednesday evening Bible study this past week, and I made the observation that the word “witnessing” has become a kind of Christian dirty word because so much of how it plays out has shifted away from what a witness is supposed to do.

Too much of “Christian witnessing” consists of telling other people what they need to believe, and then why they’re “going to hell” if they don’t. But that’s not what it is to be a witness: A witness talks about their own experience, sharing the story of what they have seen and heard.

• There’s nothing more compelling than someone sharing the story of how God’s grace and mercy has touched their own life.
• There’s nothing more invitational than the witness of new life played out in real-time.
• There’s nothing quite so captivating, so enthralling, so gripping, so riveting, so spellbinding, so absorbing, or so irresistible as a Christian actually living the life-charged life.

So what have you seen and heard? And how much of this transformational life are you willing to share today?

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long. (Katherine Hankey – 1866)