I’ve decided to share my personal testimony this Tuesday. My testimony is more a Timothy testimony than a Paul. What I mean by that is that I don’t have a radical conversion story like Paul. I grew up in a Christian home, like Timothy, and have been following Christ ever since I can remember. Of course, I’m not nearly as awesome or Godly as Timothy. Our similarities end with our backgrounds.

So, what’s the point of my testimony anyways? I used to think I didn’t have one, that I was the most boring Christian on the planet and that my life story could not possibly benefit anyone in any way. However, over the past year or so, God has been showing me my testimony and ways that it can benefit people. This is the first time I will share it publically, in its entirety. Hopefully someone out there can relate and this post encourages you or convicts you. Or better yet, does both.

I’ve been going to church with my family my whole life, but church really started having an impact on me when I was 7. We had just started going to church A (I’m keeping the church names anonymous) and I loved it. I met my best friend there (we are still friends to this day) and my Hawaiian auntie and uncle. It was a small church, so I wasn’t overwhelmed when I walked in. I remember fitting in right away and feeling like I was part of a family. We went to that church for seven years. I played the violin on the worship team, went to Sunday school, and was confident that church was the best thing ever. Then, when I was 14 and just starting to realize that grown-ups didn’t know everything, the church split. Adults, mainly my youth leaders whom I adored, where suddenly saying mean things about my parents and my aunt and uncle.  And my family wasn’t any better.  Feelings were getting hurt, friendships were being ruined, and I had no idea why.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that split was to have a very negative impact on my perception of church for the next seven years. O sure, I kept going to church. My family started going to church B right after church A. I went with them, sang on the worship team, and tried to grow their even tinier youth group. But it never felt like home and I never really got to know more than a handful of people. Just as I was starting to let my guard down, the worship leader at that church started saying hurtful things to my aunt and uncle (they had followed us to church B). One day he totally lost his temper and yelled at my mom for no reason. Hello church A flashbacks. That was it. For the next 6 years that I went to that church I never went beyond my handful of friends. Never talked to anyone new, never prayed for anyone, never cared about anyone. I never blamed God for man’s stupidity and continued to go to church to worship Him and learn from His word. But the fellowship aspect of church was almost non-existent for me.

While in college I tried a few other churches, but none of them ever stuck. I just kept going to church B because my dad was a associate pastor there and that is what was easiest. Then a friend from work invited me to her church’s college group. My boyfriend at the time (now my husband) and I went and were blown away. It was really laid back and everyone was welcoming. The study was thought provoking and relatable. I don’t know why, but we went to that group for almost a year without ever going to the church it was associated with. Right after I graduated college we started going to that church, Church C, and that’s when things started to click.

I had always known that the purpose of church was to grow one’s relationship with God. What I hadn’t realized was that the church accomplishes this purpose in four ways: worship, bible study, fellowship and outreach. I was familiar with worship and Bible study and knew how important they were. But after the split of church A, I stopped caring about fellowship and outreach. I decided I didn’t need a Christian support system other than the one I had at home. All I needed was my God, my family and me. Wrong! The pastor at church C talked a lot about the importance of outreach and even more about the importance of small groups and fellowship. Many people in that church reached out to me and, slowly, my husband and I started to reach back. It was then that I realized I had never really gotten over the split of church A, never really forgave my parents or any of the other adults involved. What’s worse is that I carried that resentment with me the whole time I was attending church B. I had blamed other people. I said they were too old to understand what I was going through or they care more about getting to know my dad than me. There was some validity to that, but the truth is, looking back, I realize there were people who genuinely cared about me. I chose to build a wall between us.

This whole church thing is still something I’m working through. Even now church C is going through a lot of changes and I’m starting to feel the old fear rising up…fear that people will leave and I’ll be left alone again, without Christian friends and without fellowship. But then I remind myself that fellowship is a choice…I can choose to reach out to others just as easily as they can reach out to me. I also have to remind myself that fellowship is vital to a healthy walk with God. He so often shows us things and speaks to us through our interactions with other Christians. We can learn so much from other people’s experiences. Worship, Bible study, Fellowship and Outreach…that’s what the church is made for.