Like Joys and Concerns… Amplified

Over at Trivium there is a great quote, I’m sure most appreciated by those of us having come from evangelical or charismatic backgrounds. The author writes:

One of the things we did at my church, many Charismatic churches do this, was to have a time to “Testify”. It was joys and concerns… amplified. There where the normal uplifting stories, the normal, yet utterly tragic, sorrows. A common phrase though, no matter what the person or family was going through, was something like “I just thank God to be with you here today”.

That’s such a great way to put it. I never thought of it like that… joys and concerns amplified. It is just so funny to think what the faces of the congregation might look like if you had a very subdue, low-key, nice joys and concerns in a charismatic church, or, on the other hand, a time to “testify” in a UU church. Makes me laugh just thinking about it. Reminds me of when I was trying to figure out how we could anoint people with oil at a healing service last year… somehow I just couldn’t come up with a way to do it that wouldn’t freak people out.