Testimony Practice

So, I meet with FPD's Personnell committee Thursday and I'm a little nervous. I feel like there are going to be some things that they will ask me that I need to be prepared for. I feel like they are definitely going to ask me for my testimony, so I'm using this blog to help me organize that:

I grew up in the church. In fact, most of my earliest memories are from church. I have believed in God for as long as I can remember. I would even say that I probably prayed the prayer quite a few times in my elementary days and was very active in church. Its hard for me to give an actual conversion date, because it was something that I came to understand more and more as I matured. One of the first times I really dedicated my life to Christ was on my first real retreat, I was in the 6th grade and it was at Panama City Beach with my brother's youth group. I always really admired my brother, and hearing him talk about the importance of his personal relationship encouraged me to really make my relationship with Jesus personal. From there I continued to be a pretty good church kid that was fairly certain of "right" and "wrong" and a lot of my spiritual life was based on doing what was right. One of the first time that my faith was really tested was in the 8th or 9th grade. Around that time is when I learned of my sister's activities. As a high schooler my sister was really rebellious, drinking and experimenting in other ways. Its important to understand that my sister was and still is my favorite person in the world, I have always looked up to her and she's my best friend. So, when I learned that my sister was doing these things that I knew were wrong, it was hard for me, because to me, she was doing what bad people do. What I realized was that my sister didn't need me to tell her that she was doing wrong, but she needed me to love her, just like Jesus did. The situation with my sister showed me the importance of being a Christian is much more about love and grace than it is about "right" or "wrong". Another key time of spiritual growth for me was my junior year of high school when I started working with the Children's ministry at my church. The children's minister really gave me a lot of opportunities to mentor and share with the kids, an it showed me the importance of having an authentic, personal faith. That idea has continued for me now as I'm working with YoungLife. It can be hard to be a real Christian mentor to the highschoolers that I work with-- but I can only do it because God does it through me. I know that I am not worthy to be telling people about Jesus and sometimes I'm not that great of a speaker and sometimes I probably don't even make sense to the kids, but I have faith that God uses me. Just the other night, God showed me again the importance of really being in the Word and knowing His word especially when working with students because I had a situation where I was talking to a girl about temptation, and I immediately went home and looked up some things about temptation in the Bible because I know its not my ideas that God wants, but He wants me to share His Word. So, I'd have to say my Christian journey is just that-- a journey, something that I continue on everyday, working to grow closer and closer to Jesus.