I hope to see lots of you out at Spencer Park on Sunday for the Living Room. Hang-out, good food, and worship…what a great way to spend an evening!

The topic for this Sunday is “Sharing Testimony” as a Christian practice. Two of our frequent “Roommates” will be sharing their story and then there’ll be opportunity for anyone else to speak.

One of the things we’ll be doing is celebrating Communion. On the subject of sharing testimonies, Communion really is God’s “Show and Tell”. You remember turning up to school as a child with your favourite toy to show off to all your friends…”This is my rock…she wears a stony expression most of the time…” etc. (sorry-not-sorry for the pun)

Sharing testimonies is Christians proclaiming to others where God has been active in their lives. Often we personally have nothing left to give, no words, just frustrations or doubts — it’s at these times when testimony becomes so valuable. We find faith through the “communion of saints”, the Church — even if we’re personally struggling.

But all these testimonies find their place in God’s one true testimony in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the human who points us to the Father through the testimony of his life, his words, his suffering, his death and, ultimately, his resurrection and ascension.

Communion is exactly that. We hear again God’s testimony in Jesus Christ. A testimony of love and devotion and overflowing grace. But more than just hearing, it becomes a show and tell. We get to taste and to touch God’s testimony — to participate in God’s life and God’s story now. That’s the great miracle. It doesn’t remain mere words, a quaint story irrelevant to our day-to-day living — no this story is something we become part of.

In short, God’s testimony becomes our testimony. All our individual stories of successes, of failures, of faithfulness, of disobedience — these all find meaning in the Great Story of God’s salvation.

So when God brings show and tell tomorrow will you be like the cool kids at the back rolling their eyes — or will you look with fresh, child-like wonder at the ordinary becoming extraordinary?

Arohanui,

Jordan