Introductory Story
When part of our first street evangelization team, Saint Paul Street Evangelization founder Steve Dawson encountered a lanky young man in a black tank top, arms and neck covered in tattoos. He offered him a rosary. The man’s name was Joey. From the conversation that ensued, Steve learnt that Joey was baptized Catholic but, having no guidance as a child, had turned headlong into a life of sex and drugs. And now, after having done so many things that he was ashamed of, Joey didn’t believe that he ever could turn back and be accepted by God or the Church. This left him in an almost continual state of sadness.
Steve saw some similarities between himself and this man. Though Steve didn’t have any tattoos, the two of them were about the same age and there was a lot in common between their lives; at least, between Joey’s life, and Steve’s earlier life. Steve was no longer entangled in sin, and no longer sad, since he had some years since returned to God and the Church, and had received mercy.
Steve knew that he needed to share his story with Joey. Knowing also that fear of hell helped him make the needed change in his life, he asked him, “If you were to die today, where do you think you would end up?” He answered, “I know that I would go to hell.”
Steve answered, “You don’t have to!” Then, he told Joey his story: where he had been, what he had done, how he came to see that he was walking the path to destruction, and how he cried out to God for mercy. He also told him of the joy and peace he now experienced as a practicing Catholic. He then asked him, “Would you like to get right with God?”
By this point, the story had done its work. Like Steve had years before, Joey now had hope aroused in his heart. The two of them met shortly after at the local Catholic Church so that Joey could receive the Sacrament of Confession. Because of Steve’s story, Joey was now a changed man.
The Power of a Good Story
When was the last time that you got teary-eyed or felt triumphant watching a film or television show? We all have had the experience of being pulled in by a good story — captured by a good narrative. We all have found ourselves rooting for the characters, feeling their victories and defeats, identifying with their hopes and disappointments. We feel the need to hear stories.
We also feel the need to tell stories. Children often come home from school excited to share what happened in class that day. Parents and grandparents tell stories from their youth — how they met their spouses, what they experienced when a child was born, what happened when they took their first job. Friends “catching up” on life in a coffee shop will share the most significant things that they have done, and that have happened to them, since the last time they talked — adding how they felt, who was involved, the challenges they faced, and what they learned from them. We make sense of our lives by fitting them into narratives. And then, through sharing those narratives, we share our lives with others. When we are close to someone, we are impelled to share our stories with them. When we want to get to know someone, we want to hear stories from their own life.
We make stories, we tell stories, and we listen to stories. Stories are in many ways the “currency” of our lives. If we think about it, it should be clear: God intended and created us to be this way. This, in turn, is very important to understand because as evangelists, we want to use the best kinds of means that we can to share the truth of the Catholic faith with others. A good story is one of those means. By and large, stories convince us, and move us to action, better than mere arguments.
You might want to convince someone, for example, that the Sacraments of Baptism and Confession are the ways that Christ established to reconcile sinners to Himself. In the process you can and often should make arguments from the authority of the Bible and from human nature; but you would be remiss if you didn’t share your own experience of Confession, how you feel lighter and more joyful after receiving it, like a burden has been lifted off your shoulders. You would be negligent if you didn’t tell your story – the story about the ways that the sacraments have given you peace and made it easier for you to resist sins than before. You might also further your case by telling Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son (see Lk 15:11-32). You can compare the grace of the Sacrament of Confession to the robe that the father, in the story, puts on his repentant son after he returns to him (see Lk 15:22, cf. Is 61:10). This, of course, reminds us that a huge part of Jesus’s ministry of preaching and teaching in the gospels includes the use of parables, many of which, like that of the Prodigal Son, are stories.
As it is with Jesus’ teaching ministry, so it is in general: a big part of the way that God chooses to reveal Himself to human beings is through story-telling. God revealed Himself in the history of the people of Israel, and then inspired men from that people as they told and wrote down their stories: the result was much of the Old Testament. God then revealed Himself fully in His Divine Incarnate Son Jesus Christ, and then inspired His disciples and their associates as they told and wrote down their stories: the result was the Gospels, and other parts of the New Testament.
Among many great examples from the Bible, the power of a good story is on full display in the Second Book of Samuel, chapter 12. The prophet Nathan told King David a story to convict his heart. David had committed the greatest sin of his life: he took the wife of Uriah the Hittite into his bed, and when he found out that she had conceived his child, he tried to cover it up. But when he couldn’t, he had Uriah killed.
The prophet Nathan’s story to David went like this:
There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him. (verses 1-4)
As Nathan told this story, David became inflamed with anger at the rich man: “As the Lord lives,” he burst out, “the man who has done this deserves to die”! But he did not expect what the prophet would say next. Nathan said to David, “You are the man.” He continued, to David’s horror: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, … You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife. … By this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord.” Moved by this story and its interpretation, David was struck to his very core, and fully repented of his sin. Because of the power of Nathan’s story, to this very day we still read and pray the poem-prayer that King David wrote on the occasion, the penitential Psalm 51.[1]
In the last lesson, we explained the meaning and power of the message of the gospel, of the kerygma. But the center of the kerygma, in fact, is a story — a true story about the coming of Jesus Christ from God into the world, and the mission He fulfilled. It is “the greatest story ever told”: the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, and how He has been established as Lord and Messiah who brings forgiveness, salvation, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who receive Him. In this lesson, we will introduce an important tool for the work of evangelization: the personal testimony. We will help you tell your own powerful story.
“O God, from my youth thou hast taught me, and I still proclaim thy wondrous deeds” (Ps 71:17).
Topic Outline
- What is a personal testimony?
- What are the basic principles of a personal testimony?
- How do we build our basic testimony?
[1] This Psalm famously begins, “Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offense. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.”