What do QVC and The Welcome Church have in common?

The answer is testimony.

We opened today's service with a lively old gospel song, "I've Got a Testimony!"

I chose it because I thought it would be a great song for Spencer to play along with on the drums...and it was...but then we began to talk about this word, testimony, used in law, Twelve Step Meetings, church...and yes--QVC.

For those of you not familiar with QVC, it is a home shopping network that I first came across when the war began in Iraq. I was so distressed by the war and the coverage on every station that I started watching QVC, one big info-mercial that I knew would have nothing to say about the horrors beginning in Iraq.

What caught my eye about QVC was their "testimonial line." The testimonial line was a place
where folks who had used a featured product could call in and "witness" or "give testimony" to the product's effectiveness, durability, beauty, or any other reason why they loved it. The testimonial line was what sold me on my first product from QVC, Space Bags---those things that you use to pack away all those extra and out of season clothing. Now I just try to give those things away and not spend more money on ways to store them.

But back to Tuesday Church. After hearing "I've Got A Testimony" and being energized by Spence's playing on the drums I asked the group, "So, what's a tetsimony?"

The answers were all wonderful and included words like "sharing" and "praising" and all kinds of good ways of telling, but the one that stayed with me came from someone who I am not sure was completely sober but who spoke from his heart saying, " A testimony is when you think that nobody cares or sees you and you think there is no hope and you're lying in the street and then you feel something that pulls you up and is with you and loves you and then you tell other people about it."

And there it was...testimony.

Abraham Heschel, sage and rabbi once said that in the end, faith is not about proof but about witness. Not about quoting one Scripture text to support whatever it is you are trying to prove, but listening to the stories of the amazing things God has done in the lives of God's people, in spite of ourselves.

The service continued and , then just as I was to say the prayer over the bread and the grape juice, someone raised his hand with the "ooo-ooo" excitement of Arnold Horschak on "Welcome Back Kotter" (an ancient sit-com) and asked, "So, why would God, lead us into temptation, anyway?" referring to a line we had just prayed from The Lord's Prayer.

I looked at him and promised we could talk about it next Tuesday, hoping that, by then, I'd find the answer...

So that's a hint of Tuesday church, shaped by the "interruptions" but always held together by the glue of grace.

And that's my testimony!