Every believer a personal testimony booklet

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Interviewer: I pushed record. Now, Chris I’d like you to imagine a world where every believer is equipped with a professional story that’s able to transfer the old, old story, the best story ever told and it’s personalized. Now, human nature tends to appreciate human nature. Right? So, they glance through it (a testimony booklet). They see grandpa. It’s nice. They flip, they don’t read because people are … They see boys, they’re like … and then they ask the question…

Chris: “Are these your kids?”

Interviewer: Are these your kids. And, I say, yes I’m one of those kids. And then they say …

Chris: Uhhh. Why are you giving this to me?

Interviewer: Which one are you? Ohh. That’s yours! I give them away to everybody. 

Chris: Oh, cool!

Interviewer: When they get to this page, they’re like…ahh… they flip ahead. They’re like, I will read this later. 

Chris: Wow, look at that young guy! 

Interviewer: Right? There’s a young fellar. Then they commit in their mind, in front of you. That’s a moral and cultural obligation. They say, “I will read this later.” And then they express gratitude. “Thank you! That’s neat!.”

Chris: Right!

Interviewer: Right? Now, they know [in their spirit] what it is. It’s a personalized presentation of the Gospel. 

Chris: Right.

Interviewer: And, here’s the question. Why doesn’t every believer prepare a personalized presentation of the Gospel? 

Chris: I don’t know. Lazy? Maybe they don’t know? They don’t think about it? 

Interviewer: There hasn’t been a pattern established.

Interviewer: So most people …

Chris: Low self esteem? 

Interviewer: Do believe in this: Most people would do good if they had the opportunity and the proper guidance. 

Chris: Yeah.

Interviewer: I wanna believe that! I really … I would wanna do good. 

Chris: Yeah.

Interviewer: If you show me how to do it … I’ll do it. 

Chris: Yeah.

Interviewer: It’s just a pattern. Once one person picks up the pattern and they’re ready to share at all times, so now we’re gonna transition. Do you know what kind of people hand out gospel tracts? 

Chris: Christians.

Interviewer: Those who carry them. 

Chris: Yes! :) 

Interviewer: Do you know what kind of people carry gospel tracts? 

Chris: Hmmm. 

Justin: Those who took the time to author them. 

Chris: Hey. Right!

Justin: Right? 

Chris: Yeah! 

Justin: ‘Cos there’s a personal investment of energy. 

Chris: Right!

Justin: They prepare. They are … what’s called the well-prepared delivery boy! 

Chris: Yeah!

Justin: Now, when I get to Heaven, I’m gonna go face-to-face with this Saviour, Friend of mine! And, He’s gonna say, “Were you a good delivery boy?” And I’m gonna say, “I hope so!”. And He’s gonna say, “Let’s hit rewind and look at some highlights to see if you were a good delivery channel.”  

Chris: Right. 

Justin: Did you carry the bag? Did you deliver the mail? You get a paycheck! 

Chris: Hmmm. Wow!

Justin: He’s a Rewarder of the… Now, I just wanna have a clean conscience before God and before my fellow humans. 

Chris: Yeah.

Justin: To be ready to transfer. Now, give me three reasons. Just one reason why this is an acceptable method of transfer. Why do you think a printed booklet, full-color, first-class is an acceptable method of transfer in today’s society? 

Chris: Let’s see … Because, it looks … I want say classy, I’m trying to think of different word. It looks like somebody’s puts some work into it. It’s looks better than if I had it here a piece of paper. 

Justin: Yes, right!

Chris: You’re like … Oh, great, this really doesn’t mean a whole lot.

Justin: It did take some effort. 

Chris: Yeah, yeah. 

Justin: It looks like there’s some effort put into it. 

Chris: I think this is a good delivery too because people are …  what’s the word I’m looking for? Where they wanna … this is your business. You know, they’re like … Oh cool! This is about this guy!  Let’s check out who this guy is. 

Justin: They wanna know who that guy is! They just met him. 

Chris: Yeah.

Justin: Sure … a little more diggin’. 

Chris: I’ll check this guy out! 

Justin: So they just met you. They’re excited about you. They’re thankful you came by or whatever. You just provided a service!

Chris: Here’s some dude..

Justin: And, here’s some! Hey … here’s a little quick story about my family. 

Chris: Right.

Justin: Or whatever..

Chris: Right.

Justin: Or you know.

Chris: Right, right. 

Justin: That’s awesome!

Chris: And then.. people are probably a little bit bored. So, they’re like, you know they see that and they be like.. “Oh, yeah! I forgot I was gonna read about that guy!” 

Justin: It’s a short, colorful booklet. 

Chris: Yeah, I like it! It’s cool!

Justin: It is intentional; it is prepared. I think people are reacting away from being over-digitized. Like, we get so much content fed to us on a phone. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Justin: That we become numb to it, that if I get some like super awesome quote or picture of somebody’s lunch from yesterday, or another family photo, I just like… blab..I flip, flip, flip. But you can’t just do … you can’t scroll up, or swipe left or whatever on that (booklet). 

Chris: Yeah. Scroll.

Justin: They do still flip through it (booklet) and they’re deciding one thing:  “Is this enough value … to make me read the rest of it later?” 

Justin: That’s all. I imagine a world where every believer is on every platform including (There’s really just four. There’s four platforms: 1. There’s face-to-face.

Right? That’s human contact. It’s pretty rare nowadays. 2. There’s printed booklet, you put words on a paper, that’s transfer. 3. Then, there’s audio. 4. And then there’s video. Those are the only 4 in the world. 

Chris: Right. 

Justin: There’s only 4 channels to get on. Now, everyone freaks out when you say, “push record on your (phone)” … Oh! They freak out!!! I mean it’s just human nature. Right? 

Chris: Yeahhh!

Justin: I’m unprepared. I have … Stop! It’s straight pride and it’s deliberate rebellion against God. But, “nobody’s” gonna get on video, “nobody’s” gonna on audio, until they take the courage to pick up a pen. Now, you know the top reason why people don’t pick up a pen? 

Chris: Uh. uhmm. 

Justin: ‘Cos they don’t know how to write. 

Chris: Don’t know how to write.

Justin: They don’t know how to put things together. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Justin: But, you know most people can talk. 

Chris: Uh. Uhm. 

Justin: Babies can talk. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Justin: Little kids can talk. So what we found, we live in 2023 and when people are talking, we all carry a smartphone. There’s a button on the smartphone you push that captures the magic vibrations out of the air. It brings them down inside the little box, and it puts them into a format that’s transferrable to other peoples’ earlobes. :) 

Chris: Right. 

Justin: So, we have ZERO excuse for not capturing our words because if I ask you, “Tell me the story of what brought you to Christ?” Now, I want the before, the during, the after. I wanna smell the smells. I wanna know the people. I want skin on the gospel. I wanna know when it very first started. I wanna know when the concepts became clear. And, I wanna know the peak verse that just unlocked the door that made it, “Oh! It ALL made sense!” I wanna know how it felt when you’re under conviction. I wanna know what happened right afterwards. I wanna know how you grew. But I specifically want you to unpack and unbox and not blasé-cover-over the new birth transformation that happened. I want that pin-point of your little life. I want you to expand that pin-point-moment out to at least a 10-minute story. 

Chris: Uhmm. 

Justin: I wanna know everything you felt, everything you heard, everything … who was there, how it went … every stinking detail, then from those details, we’re going to make what’s called … a testimony. 

Chris: Uhmm. 

Justin: From your testimony then, we’re gonna take the extracted (audio) words and put them in print. Ahh. Huhh. Huhhh. I’m a publish… You’re going to be a published author! Your book is gonna be 6 pages long.

Chris: Alright.

Justin: And, there’s gonna be a picture of you plus some people that were involved … like this grandpa.

Chris: Yeah!

Justin: That’s my grandpa. He’s in Heaven, but he delivered the Gospel to me. 

Chris: Wow!

Justin: And that’s my brother (on the front). 

Chris: Wow!

Justin: So, there’s gonna be some human connectivity; some skin on the Gospel. Do you know people say “no” to the Gospel all the time. They have no logical recourse. We’re very emotional beings. We’re creatures of habit. 

Chris: Yep. I agree! 

Justin: We want to eliminate all those excuses. You know one of the top reasons why people reject the Gospel? 

Chris: Uhmm..

Justin: The steeple. They see the Gospel handed to ‘em. When they flip the booklet over, it says, “Join the Lutheran Church” and they’re like… Oh no!.. wahh. wahh.. wahh.. Instantly, they said no to a flavor (denomination). They put this into a filing cabinet, and their brain ... they toss it right in the trashcan because it mentions the word Baptist. Or it mentions the word, somethin’. (denomination) 

Chris: Yeah. 

Justin: But, if the front says “friendly” and the back says “friendly” and the inside says it’s “friendly”, then they might read the story.

Chris: Yeah.

Justin: They might read the Bible verses. And if it never says, “Join our club,” “Join our group,” “Sign here to send us a dollar.” If all it says is … there’s no address. There’s a digital address to go to a place to learn more, you know but, yeah. Like I have … I haven’t even developed this site yet, helpmyspiritgrow.com. But it’s gonna be a digital discipleship site. You know … based on the church discipleship program. Alright, so! The encouragement is simply this: go ahead, tell me what you got so far. 

Chris: Well, one. I wanna keep that (booklet)! 

Justin: You can’t. It’s my last one. 

Chris: Oh! Is it? 

Justin: It’s a reminder to reprint it. I printed 20,000. We handed out 5,000 of them through here, through our retail store. 5,000 of these ones out to people. Now, my wife’s (testimony) we ordered 10,000. So her little testimony with the grandkids on the front, 10,000 of them got out the door. We’re down to the last box! 

Chris: Wow! 

Justin: But every human, every family that comes in the door goes out the door with a testimony tract. And what’s the reject rate? Extremely low! 

Chris: Right, yeah!

Justin: Less than 1%. 

Chris: Right. 

Justin: And did we do our job? We tried. It’s a little drip; it’s a little drop. It’s not the whole everything. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Justin: But, delivering the Gospel is a team effort. It usually takes multiple attempts. 

Chris: Yeah. I did (write) one years ago. 

Justin: Yes? 

Chris: I’m feeling like I need to do another one. So, I should record it?

Justin: Yes.

Chris: Okay. 

Justin: You should record it in the presence of somebody that you know loves God and loves you and that’s a good listener. 

Chris: Okay. 

Justin: And what the good listener does is that… wa..wa..wait… clarify that part. They make you pause. They make you … the story will come out in fresh frothiness. There’ll be more flavors and colors and sparkles. There’ll be more humanity when you’re delivering to an audience of one. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Justin: Of course you need the Holy Spirit’s filling. You need the right words; you need time to meditate, but it should just bubble-out. It should just flow out, to the right person in a good, quiet area pushing the button, recording. From that recording then, we run it through a little machine that pulls all the words and slaps it all on paper and then it’ll appear a little more … so the word “pithy” means concentrated, punchy. Like my story is, I mean I’m getting to the first… first verse about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 sentences in; and I’m already past my story and into the Gospel. 

Chris: Right. Right.

Justin: Pretty much. But, my grandpa explained it to me, you know. Can I tell you a story? When I was 5 years old, my grandpa told me how to live for ever. You’re hooked! You’re in! You’re done! You’re gonna read the rest of it! 

Chris: Right.

Justin: Anyway. There it is!

Chris: Awesome! Alright. I’m gonna do it!

Justin: Amen!