A few nights ago the students involved in the confirmation class at my church had to stand up in front of their friends and families and state what they believe in and why. Leading up to this event a few of the girls in the class had asked for help getting started on their testimonies and had told me a little about what they were going to say. One of the girls mentioned that she was going to tell a story that came from a Bible study that she had attended and that I had helped lead last year.

The Bible study was about Galatians, and I taught on a particular section where Paul, the author of Galatians, makes the point that it’s not ok to try to add things to Scripture.  The church in Galatia was doing just that, however, and Paul wasn’t happy about it. So I wanted to devise a way to demonstrate to a group of middle school students that adding to the Bible is bad, and I wanted it to be something they’d remember. Well, I decided to make some brownies and add a few choice ingredients that would ruin the whole recipe so that they would see that Scripture, like a good brownie recipe, is complete. So every spice in my kitchen ended up in these brownies: thyme, oregano, curry powder, etc. I fed my unsuspecting students these brownies and laughed internally as they tried desperately not to hurt my feelings, while also trying to discretely get the brownies back out of their mouths. One girl commented cheerfully that they tasted like Doritos. When I thought they couldn’t take it anymore, I revealed that those brownies had extra ingredients they didn’t need, and then I pulled out a second batch of normal brownies to make up for what I had put them through. Nearly a year later I still get asked, “Remember that time you made us eat those nasty brownies?”

Well, this is the story that one of the students decided to use in her testimony a few nights ago. She told me beforehand that she wanted to tell it, and I was honored that she remembered this lesson and found it worthy of being a part of her faith story. Little did I know, that the retelling of this story by this middle school student would become a story all by itself that I am not likely to forget for a long time. Instead of telling the audience the story the way I just related it to you, it sounded something like this:

“My mom decided that my brother and I needed to try out this Bible study on Wednesday nights. It was Dave and Elizabeth Wheat. Our first night there she gave us some brownies, but they weren’t normal brownies. They were... different. They had something added to them.”

If at this point you are starting to think to yourself that it sounds like she is describing “special” brownies that no Bible study leader should be serving, you are not the only one. The room immediately got more uncomfortable as all the parents start to wonder what kind of church this is. All the teenagers start looking around to see if anybody else is hearing what they are hearing, and the story continues:

“She told us how Paul was mad at the Galatians for adding things to the Bible, and all the sudden the brownies made sense because something had been added to them. They didn’t taste like normal brownies.”

Now I’m starting to panic that she isn’t ever going to tell them what it was that I actually put in the brownies. I’m fearing that all of the sudden I’m going to have a lot of angry parents after me when this is all over. Then finally she reveals the mystery ingredients:

“She had put all kind of spices in them like thyme and basil and meat seasonings and all this Italian stuff!. That was kind of a weird thing to happen on your first night at a church, but I decided I wanted to come back.”

Everybody laughs, and I am saved. Well, sort of saved. I still got teased a good deal about the “special” brownies. I have a feeling that as much as the actual brownie story took on a life of its own, the retelling of the story on testimony night is going to be around for quite some time also. I had a lot of parents laughingly tell me that they weren’t quite sure where she was going with that story, and while they knew that there was no way I had done what it sounded like I had done, they just weren’t sure. This is one reason I love about working with middle school students.