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Date Posted: 17:33:16 12/01/04 Wed
Author: PECAS
Subject: The Doctrine of Testimony Sharing
In reply to: Nick T. 's message, "New thread on doctrine" on 10:27:55 10/22/04 Fri

The Doctrine of Testimony Sharing

In this essay, I will discuss testimony sharing in UBF. In UBF, each local UBF ministry reserves one night each week, usually Friday, for testimony sharing. In UBF, testimonies are defined as a written account of what was learned from the passage on which the previous Sunday message was delivered. The testimony is supposed include a discussion of the main point of the passage, which was preached by the Sunday messenger and personal application(s) of the passage to the sharer. The sharer should discuss the sins that the passage reveals in their life and repent of those sins. The sharer should also discuss prayer topics and thanksgiving prayer topics in their testimony. Also, the testimony provides an opportunity for church members to share prayer topics and have fellowship.
Testimony sharing meetings are good on their face. It is good for church members to share prayer topics, share our struggles, and have fellowship with each other. When I was first told about testimony sharing, I thought that it was a good idea. I wanted to share my prayers and struggles for the week. I wanted to discuss what I learned from the scripture and to hear how others received the same scripture. However, in UBF, the good which could be derived from testimony sharing has been trampled and replaced with an environment of manipulation and control.

Uniformity of UBF Testimonies

It would stand to reason that each individual who hears the message on Sunday and then studies the scripture with their shepherd would have unique outlooks on the scripture. Each person has different life experiences that would apply to the passage. Each person has a different verse or point that they receive. Each person may organize their testimony in different styles.
However, UBF testimonies are static and uniform. UBF leaders do not encourage the differences among individual testimony sharers. Instead, they have one and only one style of testimony that is acceptable in UBF. Each testimony should only focus on one or two points; the points emphasized in the Sunday message. Each person is supposed to basically learn the same lesson from the passage; the lesson that the messenger wants you to learn. When new members begin to share testimonies, the shepherd will quickly tell the new sharer the proper way to share a testimony in UBF. The shepherd always claims that the way UBF wants testimonies to be written and shared is God’s way. Typically, the shepherd will tell his sheep to organize his testimony similarly to how the message was organized. The points and subpoints, title of the testimony, key verse, and the title of each section and subsection should be the same as the message. The shepherd typically will encourage the sheep to read the message one or more times and then write the testimony based on the message. Thus, all testimonies will look relatively similar.

Personal Repentance is at the direction of the sharer’s shepherd

The testimony sharer will be instructed to add their personal repentance, personal application, and personal prayer topics to the testimony. One would think that each person would have a unique personal application, personal repentance, and personal prayer topics. However, they are not really personal, but dictated by his or her shepherd.
Regarding personal repentance, the shepherd will impart the specific sin for which the sheep should repent during their 1:1 Bible study. If the sheep does not repent for the sin they are told to repent for, the shepherd will not consider the testimony good. The shepherd will continue to hammer that the sheep should repent for one specific sin that the shepherd considers to be the sheep’s main problem. Thus, the personal repentance topics are often manipulated by the shepherd. The shepherd often finds a sin for which the sheep must repent and then wants the sheep to talk about that sin in subsequent testimonies. The sheep may very well have a specific sin for which he or she needs to repent. However, the sheep is not provided with an environment in which they can receive God’s word regarding their sin problem. Instead, they are given a direction from the shepherd to repent for this sin by writing about their repentance in their testimony. In this case, the testimony is not sincere. The sheep is only writing the repentance to please the shepherd.
In other cases, the shepherd will conclude that the sheep has a sin problem that the sheep actually does not have. The sheep may respond that the sin the shepherd thinks is their sin problem is actually not their sin problem. The shepherd will typically not listen to the sheep. Instead, the shepherd will assume that the sheep is stubbornly refusing to repent for his or her sin or that the sheep is disrespectful and disobedient by not listening to his or her shepherd. The sheep has no room in which they are free to repent of their sins before God. Instead, their sins are dictated to them by their shepherds.

Uniform Prayer Within the Testimony

Personal prayer topics are discouraged in favor of the UBF prayer topics. Typically, testimonies include a prayer at the beginning. The sheep is typically told what to pray during this prayer. The sheep should pray for the UBF topics, such as America being raised as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, X numbers of disciples raised among Y university students, Z Bible studies per week, going fishing W times per week on the campus, God may bless Missionary _______’s message, thank God for Shepherd or Missionary _______ sacrificing their time to study the Bible with me. These are the prayer topics that shepherds tell their sheep to mention. Shepherds also tell sheep not to make their prayer too long. Thus, after mentioning the required prayer topics there is not much time left for the sheep to discuss their own prayer topics. When the sheep shares prayers about their family or friends, they will be encouraged to instead pray for the UBF prayer topics. The typical UBF testimony prayer looks something like this:

The UBF testimony prayer will be something like this:

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus as my Lord and Savior (optional). Thank you for calling me to be a campus shepherd in insert local chapter name here UBF. I pray that American may be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. I pray that God may send missionaries to all 561 campuses in America. I pray for one million American missionaries to be raised in the 21st century. I pray that insert local chapter name here UBF may teach the Bible to insert number here sheep each week and have insert number here Sunday worship service attendants. I repent for not praying for world mission, fishing on the campus or having a sincere desire to teach the Bible to college students. I repent for spending more time studying for exams instead of fishing on the campus. I repent for not listening to or respecting shepherd/missionary ___________ . I pray to follow their direction absolutely. I pray that I may teach insert number here sheep each week, attend the early morning prayer meeting, go fishing insert number here times per week, and write a sincere, repentant testimony. I pray in Jesus’ Name, AMEN.

Personal Applications are UBF-centered

One would think that personal applications within testimonies would be unique. After all, each person does not have the exact same life experience. While the personal applications are not exactly alike, they are manipulated to mostly discuss the sharer’s UBF experience from the UBF point of view. Personal applications are almost exclusively supposed to be about situations in which the sharer was engaged in UBF activities. The sharer may discuss their experiences when fishing, teaching the Bible, praying, attending meetings, testimony writing, message writing, following direction from their shepherds and missionaries, and preparing for conferences. Discussion of activities or people outside of UBF generally must still center around the UBF activity. For example, if the family issue is that the sharer’s parents do not approve of UBF, the sharer would share how they are being persecuted by their family, but are still serving campus mission by faith. If the sharer discusses school issues, it is usually centered around how he or she participated in UBF activities, but still received an A. Or the sharer would mention that their problems in school are because they are not spending enough time writing testimonies, fishing, and teaching the Bible. Sheep who do not share events outside of UBF without a tie in to UBF activities and prayer topics are generally considered to have written a self-centered testimony and will be rebuked. They will be encouraged to write a God-centered testimony. UBF defines God-centered testimonies as ones that only focus on UBF activities.
Thus far, I have discussed how the UBF testimonies are supposed to have the same content, same organizational structure, same prayer topics, personal applications, and the repentance topics dictated by the sharer’s shepherd. Thus, testimonies in UBF are transformed from each person writing what they personally receive from God’s word to a uniform testimony in which every sharer is basically writing the same thing. This environment prevents individual members from expressing his or her individual life in Christ. Each person is encouraged by their shepherd to fit their testimony into a small criteria that pleases UBF. Anything outside of this criteria is considered to be a low quality testimony. Testimonies outside of the UBF criteria will often be considered by the leaders to be burdensome. Soon after a new member begins to share testimonies they are told by their shepherd how to change their testimony. New members who seem unwilling to change are then told that his or her testimony is a burden and they cannot share their testimony at the Friday meeting. Then, when the person makes a few changes, he or she is told how much better their testimonies are after the change. Further, if they listen to their shepherd, their testimony will be great.

Uniform Thankfulness Within the Testimony

Good testimonies in UBF must also have at least one paragraph of thankfulness toward the shepherd and/or chapter director. The thankfulness paragraph will be something like this:

I thank God for my Bible teacher, shepherd/missionary _______________. Before, I met him/her, I was filled with insert sin here. Then, shepherd/missionary __________, invited me to study the Bible 1:1 with him/her. I was skeptical and tried to avoid Bible study. But shepherd/missionary ___________ did not give up on me. He/she bore with me by calling me many times to encourage me and pray for me. Finally, I accepted Bible study. Shepherd/missionary ________________’s Bible studies were filled with God’s grace and love. He/she always prayed for me. He/she sacrificed his/her time to serve me. Shepherd/missionary insert various works the done by the shepherd/missionary (cooking meals, helping with homework, etc.) He/she challenged me to deny my worldly desires and human dreams and accept God’s calling to be a campus shepherd. He/she loved me to bare with insert sins here. Through his/her Bible study, I repented of my insert sins here and am praying to grow as a campus shepherd. I thank God for sending shepherd/missionary ____________ to study the Bible with me.

God is not mentioned much. The thankfulness paragraph will mention thankfulness to people more than God. That is what UBF leadership encourages. UBF believes that if the sharer thanks their shepherd or chapter director that they must be thankful to God. This places the shepherd and chapter director in the place of God, sometimes even ahead of God. If a sharer thanks God and does not thank his/her shepherd, he/she is likely to be rebuked for being unthankful. The sharer might respond that they thanked God. The shepherd will reply that by not thanking your shepherd or chapter director that you do not see God’s work in those people. They are God’s servants to teach you God’s word and raise you as a campus shepherd. Thus, by not thanking your shepherd and chapter director, you are actually not thankful to God who sent them to you. If the sharer thanks the shepherd, but does not thank God, the shepherd is likely to be praised as thankful. The shepherd will assume that because the sharer thanked his shepherd and the chapter director, God’s servants, the sharer is revealing his/her thankfulness to God. UBF encourages their members to be more thankful for people than God. We should spent the most time thankful God for sending Jesus as our Savior for creating us, for providing eternal life and forgiveness of sins for us, and for sending the Holy Spirit to be our mediator as we live everyday. God does use people in our lives or which we should be thankful. Nevertheless, we should focus on God, because God provides all people and things that we need in our lives. However, UBF is concerned with thankfulness to UBF shepherds and missionaries more than anyone else, including God.

In conclusion, UBF leaders have taken a meeting that could be for church members to share God’s work in each person’s life, pray for each member’s personal struggles, and learn from how each person uniquely received God’s word and turned it into a meeting in which each person’s unique life in Christ is molded into what pleases UBF leaders. Testimony sharers can only share testimony by thanking shepherds and missionaries more than God, repenting of the sins dictated by their shepherd, fitting their personal applications into UBF activities, praying the UBF prayer topics, and by receiving the exact same point that was written in the Sunday message.

In Christ,

PECAS

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