4. Stepping Out - What's Your Story?

So let us be a people who, knowing the love of God, choose to recognise our circle of comfort, choose to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and choose to obey and STEP OUT and away and across the room and reach out a hand, “Hullo, my name is David.”

What is happening here is the beginnings of friendship. When, like Jesus, we STEP OUT we are being kind, tolerant, patient. We are being friendly.

So do be deliberately friendly. Do it because God loves every person, they are as valuable as you and me, and because they would be infinitely better off if they too knew the Jesus who loved and died for them. Befriend them even if they would never follow Jesus – because that is what Jesus would do.

Last week we looked at some helpful hints about how to be friendly and how to build friendships. This week we are looking at the special element you bring to every relationship and friendship you have. Your story.

As Garrison Keillor said, "You get old and you realise that there are no answers, just stories." Well, he is not quite right but he has a point.

First of all, let’s hear someone’s story.

Ian’s story

Brought up in a non-church family I had never had anything to do with God. I went on holiday to Greece with 6th form friends. I was miserable, my body was in pain with to injured feet and sunburnt eye-lids. My friends were only interested in drinking and "having a good time". I read a book called, "The shock of your life" which inspired me to pray about where I was right there in my life – God revealed himself to me and removed all the pain that I was experiencing. I have never doubted him since, and intend to follow and serve Jesus for the rest of my life.

ERIK

As we build relationship with people and we find out about them, why should we share our own story?

1. Most of us, particularly if we come regularly, are here because God has changed us. God has touched our lives and we have become transformed as a result. God has done mighty things for us.

The natural response to that is to praise God and to bear witness to what he has done. The Psalms, which are songs of praise sung by David, probably the greatest king of Israel, are full of examples of this praise.

Thus, in Psalm 9: 11 David sings:

Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done.

Or in Psalm 18: 48 – 49 he says:

You lift me high above those who attack me, you deliver me from the man of violence. For this I will praise you, Lord, among the nations, and sing praise to your name.

God has done great things for me, and I will bear witness to his goodness.

2. Our story can open up the way for others to meet God.

Over the past few weeks, we have spoken a number of times of an encounter Jesus had, recorded by John, one of the disciples and thus one of the closest followers of Jesus. His book is one of four accounts of Jesus’ life and work.

Chapter 4 of John’s book records a long conversation Jesus has with a Samaritan woman beside a well, which ends with Jesus telling her that he has been sent by God to set her free. I like the woman’s response. As soon as the conversation is over she does this:

John 4: 28 – 30

Then, leaving her water-jar, the woman went back to town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

She tells people the story of her encounter with Jesus. That encounter has such an impact on her, that the people in the town can see that she has changed, that she has become different herself. And that convinces people. In fact, John writes down specifically:

John 4: 39

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him [Jesus] because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

Much later, after Jesus died and rose again from the dead, his disciples carried his story out into the world, much in the same way as the Samaritan woman did.

So, Peter, another of the close followers of Jesus, writes to the Christian community:

2 Peter 1: 16 – 18

When we told you about the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were not slavishly repeating cleverly invented myths; no, we had seen his majesty with our own eyes.

Or John says in one of his letters to the Christian community:

1 John 1: 3

We are declaring to you what we have seen and heard, so that you too may share our life. Our life is shared with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ.

Finally, Paul, not one of the original disciples, had a really powerful encounter with Jesus which turned him from being a deadly enemy of the early Christian community to being one of its greatest advocates. And again, he carries his message through telling his story. His life is recorded in the book called “The Acts of the Apostles” which records the history of the very first Christian community.

At one point, Paul stands before King Agrippa, King of the Jews under the Roman occupation. He has been accused of blasphemy and of stirring up trouble. If he is convicted, he will be executed. So, when he is given the opportunity to explain himself, it really matters that he explains properly what he believes and why. His life depends on it. This is what he says:

Acts 26: 9 – 29 Paul tells his story

Paul does not present a clever argument for his faith, though he could do, and in other places he does so. But here, where his life is at stake, when the need is greatest that he speaks truthfully and convincingly about why he does what he does, he tells his story.

He says simply and honestly

“This is who I was – I hated the Christians and persecuted them. But then Jesus spoke to me, and now I am completely different.”

And though his story is simple, it is so powerful that King Agrippa is very nearly convinced to become a Christian himself.

Why, then, do I believe? What is my story? Here it is:

I used to cut myself off from other people because I was scared they were determined to hurt me. And I was almost convinced that they were right to despise me, because I felt I was worthless. In my loneliness, I nearly died. Then Jesus came and said to me, “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I am with you.” Because of that, I became able to come out from behind my wall again and to build relationships with people.

The promise is that telling my story is enough to open a way for God to reach into the hearts of other people, so that they too can be set free, come out of darkness into the light.

Let me hand over to David for some concrete tips on how to share our story with others.

DAVID

Our inspiration for this series, Stepping Out, is the book by Bill Hybells, “Just Walk Across the Room”. He challenges you to slim down a version of your story for those occasions when you have just a few seconds to communicate why you have decided to follow Jesus.

We have previously learnt to capture our story in an “elevator pitch” – something which last a few minutes.

Today I would like to challenge you to slim it down even further – down to less than 100 words, which should take about 30-45 seconds to say.

That is what Ian and Erik have done and that is why we put it up on the screen – so you can see what 100 words look like. Of course, after Ian shared his story it left some questions hanging in the air … which then gave me the opportunity to follow up.

What happens? You get a trigger question and have a few moments in which to say what could be a really important couple of sentences. And your mind goes blank, you stumble over the words, don’t say what you really want to say, go on too long and lose the opportunity. Or at least the fear of that makes it more likely.

On the other hand if you can easily share a short story you have sown a valuable seed and can then wait for the other person to either; ask you to explain more, which means you are in a conversation; or for them to change the subject, which means they have heard as much as they wanted to for now.

Here is my story:

I have known and loved Jesus all my life. I grew up in a missionary family in Bangladesh. I made my own decision to follow Jesus at boarding school when I was 9 because I was faced with the issue of what happens when I die. I decided to believe in Jesus' promise of everlasting life. I wanted to be able to approach death without fear, and so gave my life to him then. I now enjoy this life to the full and look forward to what happens next not with fear but with enthusiasm.

Trigger Questions

You have left your circle of comfort and walked across the room, you have made friends, built relationship, you know their name, you have listened and found out about the other person, perhaps over a long time. At some point they want to find out about you. They may know about your involvement in the Vineyard and Reach Out and they are ready to ask you a question. It might sound like this:

You have changed, why? What’s happened?
Why do people get at you because of your faith?
Why do you believe in God?
So why are you into this Vineyard thing?
What is all this about Jesus?
So what’s your story?

Now, are you ready? Do you have something to say? You don’t have to answer the question directly, Jesus rarely did. But you need to say something. This is it. Your answer may be a significant step in this person’s journey to knowing the transforming power of Jesus in their life.

Please find some paper and pens and then I will give you some pointers to help you.

Let me speak to those of you who don’t have a story about making a decision to follow Jesus because you have never been given the opportunity.

Maybe this is your day. Maybe you have heard enough to know that your own life plan is not going great and that you need God’s plan. Well, your story can happen today. You can make a decision to let Jesus into your life, you can know his forgiveness and you can start a new life, forever, following him.

If so, talk with the person who brought you or come and grab me. Maybe read through one of these booklets. Pray and ask God to rescue you. And then you will have a story to tell.

Let me speak with those who, a bit like me, have followed Jesus for a long time and have made many decisions along the journey. Maybe you can’t indicate to a specific point of decision. That’s OK. The Lord establishes relationship with us in many different ways, ones that are right for us.

However, I would encourage you to have a go at this exercise anyway. The process of pinning down a point of time provides a reference point. When hard times come, when doubt prevails, it is helpful to have that reference point to look back to and hold on to.

Four things to aim for:

Brevity – don’t be longwinded
Clarity – avoid fuzziness by sticking to one plot line
Simplicity – avoid religious language, use normal words that everyone understands
Humility – don’t be pious or haughty, I have this sussed – poor you

To help you write your story here is some scaffolding:

The before. Where did your journey start?
What happened? how did your life intersect with God?
The after. What was the result? What changed?
Then connect them together with a story line.
Count the words and reduce it to less than 100.
Take out anything not essential, leave some questions for them to ask.

It is not easy but, to be honest, the challenge in doing this exercise is not a writing or literary one. The challenge is in thinking about what actually this does all mean to you. It is somewhat unnerving to think about such a significant part of your life and formulate it into words rather than memories, concepts and assumptions.

But please have a go. I think you will really value the result in due course.

The first time will not be the complete deal of course – you need to work on it. To help you we have set up an email address: mystory@wharfedale-vineyard.org

You can email your story to that address, Erik, David and I will get them and will respond to you with helpful hints about how to improve it. If it runs to a page or two it will come back with lots of red. If it has religious language you had better cover your eyes when you open the reply. And if it is weird or super-religious you had better adjust your spam filter.

With your permission we would like to use these stories from time to time. They are so interesting and encouraging. Please let us know if you would rather not have them used like that. We would always ask you first anyway.