This is what my faith looked like about 20 years ago:

I attended my home church with my wife for church services and Sunday School. I was fairly new in a 12-step program for sex addiction recovery, and although I had attended my home church consistently for my entire life, there was very little connection to God and Jesus. I knew the church. I knew the liturgy. I knew the prayers. I knew the people. I even knew some Bible stories. However, I did not know the Bible, and I did not know God. Our Pastor was part of my story on how I arrived in my 12-step program for sex addiction recovery. In one of my check-in meetings with him, he suggested I attend Sunday school. So I did.

The Sunday school class I landed in was with a man I knew a little bit about but not well. The class was quite deep in nature, but the man would stand up front and preach the entire 40 minutes. While I did enjoy getting to know the Bible, it was just this guy talking for 40 minutes. There were a few comments here and there, and I would ask questions. My questions would not get me very far as I would get shut down as quick as I asked the questions. The teacher always had an answer. The problem I had was we were getting this man’s interpretation of the Bible, and there was no room for discussion. In one of my check-in meetings with my Pastor, he asked me how Sunday school was going. I told him that I was faithfully attending the Sunday school class and that I liked what I was learning, I liked all the people in the class, I liked the teacher, but I hated the class. After discussion, my Pastor walked me to a new class he thought would be more suitable to my needs. It was the spark that I needed. 

My favorite place quickly became this new Sunday school class I was attending. We were called the GRACE Sunday School class. I cannot recall the full acronym meaning of GRACE at the moment, but I do know that the C and E stood for current events. The class was set up as a Christian book study with open discussion about the texts on our personal beliefs versus Bible scripture that was intertwined with current events. I really enjoyed the class. It made me hungry for more, and I always looked forward to the class each week.

My wife Grace joined our Sunday school class, and things really started to take off for me. Our first child was born the following year, and as he grew into a toddler, my wife would move on to assist with Sunday school in the young children’s room.

I was really into my Sunday school class, and I always had something to say. It made me hungry for my faith. It made me hungry for the Bible. However, I had tried to read the Bible, and my best shot lasted just a little over three months. It was boring and, quite frankly, I did not understand it.

As my time in my 12-step program continued, and I began to heal from my addiction, a connection with God started to form. The root of this connection to God was through my 12-step program. I began to see everything spiritual through my 12-step program. The Sunday school class was also influencing my thought processes, and I began to be able to see my faith tradition on a deeper level for the very first time.

I would sit in church and listen to the sermon, and my filter for everything spiritual was my 12-step program. As the Pastor would preach the word of God, I would relate what he was saying and talking about through everything I was learning in my 12-step program. As I write this, it truly strikes me as an odd method to learn about your own faith tradition that you have been part of your entire life. However, that is my truth. That is where I was at that time. Eventually, as I grew spiritually, I was able to start to separate my 12-step program thinking from my faith tradition thinking. This took several years to develop this skill.

One Thursday evening at one of my 12-step meetings, a man walked into the meeting late. He came in the door and made bunch of ruckus. We all turned our heads, and we all knew he was a newcomer. He waved as he entered and acted like he knew what he was doing as he went over to the coffee pot and grabbed a cup and tried to get himself a cup of coffee. The problem was, those coffee pots and supplies did not belong to our group. They belonged to another 12-step group. I delivered the bad news to him as we all laughed, and I got him settled in. That was the beginning of a new friendship. I came to know Gary* (name changed) quite well over the years. I would find out later that Gary knew the Bible quite well.

As my journey continued in both my 12-step program and my faith journey in my church, I would talk to Gary multiple times a week. Since I was aware that he knew the Bible so well and I had questions, we often landed on discussions that would intertwine our current life situations and the Bible. It was always great talking to Gary. We became good friends. When Gary would start talking about Bible stories I did not know about, I would back him up and have him tell me a summary of the story. He was always accommodating, and I know he really enjoyed it too. He became my go-to guy for Bible discussions outside of my church Sunday school class people.

I really wanted to know the Bible. However, I did not want to read it. I would give valiant attempts to read it but would always end up setting it down. It was confusing and boring. So I came up with an idea. I asked Gary if he would write me a summary of the Bible. He really liked that idea and indicated that he would be interested in doing that. However, when I would ask him on his progress of how the summary was going, he would always defer to just not being able to do it because he was afraid he could not do it justice. He would, however, talk about a book he knew about that was a summary of the Bible. He would tell me that he was looking for that book or that he was still thinking about looking for that book but he didn’t know where to find it.

Almost 2 years after asking Gary to summarize the Bible for me, we were talking on the phone, and he was super excited. He told me he had found the book that summarized the Bible, and he had bought one for me and one for himself. This is exactly what I had been looking for! Bible Cliffs Notes!

(Cliffs Notes in the USA is a set of prepared notes used as study guides for literary works. In Canada, they are known as Coles Notes)

The book is called “Manna and Mercy,” written by Daniel Erlanger. As I have come to understand, the origin of the book is written in the author’s Mennonite influence.

This book has been a valuable resource to me in my faith journey. It started out as my primary method for understanding the Bible and my faith. Today I now use it as a reference to reinforce my faith journey. My wife and I often reference it and share it with our Sunday school class that we currently teach.

I am starting my 3rd week here at Give Your Story. I believe I have had some fairly decent traffic develop over the last 2 weeks. Outside of my family and people I know, a Facebook group I am part of has been some of that source of traffic. In addition, the ad space I have used within WordPress has been the other primary source. I will say that at times if it wasn’t for my family and people I know, site visits and clicks have been at times dismal at best. Dismal meaning not even hitting double digits on views per day.

I received my first submission for this site from my friend a while back. My friend had written a paper for his Masters class he was taking and wanted to share it with me. He actually sent it to me before I even knew I was going to create the domain Giveyourstory.com. I finally had a chance to read it last week, and I was blown away. The Paper is called “The Story.” The Story (linked here) is THE STORY. The Bible story! He wrote a summary of the Bible! I knew I had to get this posted.

My plans for the launch of this site were to post a summary of the Bible. I had been working on it when I stepped in a puddle and got distracted and lost my job. It is still a work in construction.

The Story submission post has become my most popular post in the past two weeks. As of today, I have over a hundred views between clicks on the site and email opens on that post. People from all over the world are reading this post. The most popular place is, of course, the United States, as that is my primary market. However, South Africa, Russia, South Korea, India, China, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada, to name a few, have all had viewers.

People are interested in a summary of the Bible! I believe some of the reason for this is because there is Hope in the Bible. I also believe that people are interested in a summary of the Bible because, well… We are lazy. When I reflect on my attempts to read the Bible, it ended in failure because it was confusing and boring. In the end, I just did not understand what I was reading and was too lazy to investigate and learn it. That’s where Bible Cliffs Notes come in! Why not start with a Bible summary to get you interested in the feast that is in the Bible?

Manna and Mercy was my Bible Cliffs Notes. It seems that The Story post may have become others’ Bible Cliffs Notes. Maybe it is the first time you have heard of Jesus. Maybe it the first time you have been able to capture the entire story of the Bible. Maybe it is just a reenforcement of the Bible as you already know it. I hope it is the spark for something bigger for you. 

While I support and highly recommend reading your Bible and studying the word, I also support giving people hope with a story. The Story. If a 15-20 minute read delivers the message of Jesus to you and creates a spark, then I am so happy to give you that opportunity to learn and know about Jesus Christ.

I would like to thank my friend Glenn Lanham for sharing The Story with us. I know he is thrilled that his work is filling a God-given path that was laid out for him. I am thrilled to be part of not only his journey but those who have come to know Jesus or re-enforce Jesus through reading The Story here at Giveyourstory.com.

Please like and share The Story post.

If you have not read The Story, please check it out!”