Testify

This morning, we became congregationalists.  During Sunday worship, we participated in the liturgy that made us official members of First Congregational Church, UCC.

As I was trying to describe what our part of the service would be like to our son, my husband told him that he would have to  spontaneously testify to the whole congregation. Now, that was just my husband trying to be funny and falling flat, but it did spark a discussion about what "testifying" means.

I said that there are two ways the word testify is used. One is in a court of law and means to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." The other way is in a religious sense. It is also about truth telling, but the truth isn't recounting facts correctly.  It is about describing your own truth about your experience of God and Mystery.

My family has always belonged to progressive or liberal churches because of our belief that Jesus was all about social justice. But, liberal churches often also lean more toward the head than the heart. They are afraid of testifying, of unruliness, of the unknown of Mystery and the Holy Spirit.

I'm still very uncomfortable with testifying, except to safe audiences. I'm trying to overcome that.  The story of God moving in and throughout my life is much more exciting and interesting than what I did last weekend.