Spiritual storytelling (a.k.a. "my testimony") is often an inspiring experience for a gathered group of Christians. It is also inherently risky. The risk is that the story will sound wonderful. Whenever the overwhelming number of details of someone's garden-variety life are squeezed down to a significant few, it can seem that that four-minute abridged version of existence is fabulously more exciting or meaningful than anything the rest of us have experienced in the previous forty years. We may say to each other, "How awesome it is that God is at work in your life," when in fact what we're really thinking is, "Why isn't God doing things like that in me?" 

Over the years it's hard for a growing disciple not to wonder, "Where is the proof that my life is different because I am a Christian? …