Heehee, that's great news! I'm glad it worked out so well for you. And, yes, "Divine Appointments" or "Holy Spirit Coincidences" are the GREATEST! I just had one again about a week ago... Like your pastor said, "I just LOVE IT when that happens!" ;-)
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Even though it worked out great for you, I'm probably more with MOSHE on the "not wanting to tell that I was an exJW." Even though I DO BELIEVE certain JWs can be "saved" and maybe not even realize it due to erroneous WT teachings, I say "good luck" trying to convince a "regular Christian" of that fact that you know you were "saved" even though you were a JW.
The reason I say this is two-fold:
(1) I have a "Christian lady friend" who I met early on (1990) after I left the WT and she's always said, "You couldn't have been saved if you would have done THAT..." (referring to my "sin" that I decided to follow [a worldly guy] and left the WT because of it). Yet, I say "How dare she judge?" since SHE LIVED THE SAME WAY [same sin] FOR DECADES yet considered herself "saved" all during that time since she was 10 years old. Sheesh. I say, "What the devil meant for evil, God meant for GOOD" (Gen. 50:20) because that sin (and it WAS a sin against God, not simply a sin against the WT, and I did pay dearly for it), but that sin GOT ME OUT of the WT, which I probably never would have left the WT of my own accord because I was so duped by them.
(2) I was in "searching mode" back in the mid 1970s while living in a ski town in the Rockies, and after finding Christian tracts at the local post office, got on my knees at home and said the "Sinner's Prayer" back in late 1976, yet the very next month, January 1977, I met my first JW ever -- a workmate at a job I got in January 1977. So was it the Devil putting that JW in my path right after getting "saved" via the "Sinner's Prayer"? Maybe so, eh? But does that negate my having been "saved"?
Even though I would not commit to study w/the JWs at that time (1977), he did give me their green bible and a few books. So two years later when I finally began reading that bible all by myself (and it blew me away!!! in a GOOD WAY -- and that's when I personally feel my "salvation" actually "kicked in" because I could sense the Holy Spirit operating all over the place), well, after a few months I thought I should go find these people who had given me this Bible two years previously, so I myself, like an idiot, went and looked up the JWs at that time (1979). So did my "newbie Christian ignorance" [hooking up w/the JWs] negate my having been "saved" several years earlier?
I had anguished over these things the past few years since learning about the WT errors, and coming to correct understanding of Christian truth, but the Lord provided the answer in a last-minute remarkable kind of way, so I am satisfied with it and do feel that I was "saved" all along... just simply hooked up with the wrong group out of ignorance (there were NO other "church people" around in those days in that town that I ever saw... I mean, NOBODY ever "witnessed" to me whatsoever... only that one JW guy, and he only did because it was ME who asked HIM a question first, about "What on earth was he reading on the job?" lol -- come to find out, it was the blue "Truth" book).
Personally I think the Lord is MUCH MORE compassionate about who are His than regular Church people might give credit for, like my above-mentioned "Christian friend," for instance; so I probably wouldn't feel too eager to share the fact that I was an exJW right off the bat... maybe after time and if I felt extremely 'safe' with whoever, a pastor or whoever.
And more recently I did an interview on a Christian internet radio site about things unrelated to WT, but in the discussion the subject of JWs came up, and that lady (the radio hostess) about went bonkers ranting and raving about JWs. I mean she went b-o-n-k-e-r-s, demanding that everyone slam the door in JWs faces because they are antichrist-carriers and a greeting should not even be said to them, etc. etc. lol. I couldn't get a word in edge-wise, but it taught me a lesson... lips zipped about certain things! My salvation (and how it did or did not come about) is really nobody's business but between me and the Lord anyway.
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Well, I could say more, but didn't mean to hijack your thread. Basically I was simply agreeing with MOSHE for now... though I may change my mind in the future.
And hope things continue to go great w/you in your new church setting. Who knows... you may become the "in-house" JW-expert who may be asked to give little informational talks to educate the congregation about the WT and JWs. I hear that's what happens sometimes... ;-)
Blessings!
Signed:
A fellow servant of the Lord Jesus Christ!
/ag
