1. Believe that your story is worth hearing. Do you have a story to tell? If you have turned away from sin and turned toward Christ in repentance and faith, then you have a story to tell that illustrates the greatest story in the world; the Gospel! Your unique story may connect with someone far from God in a way that no one else’s can! God has given you a special story, and your story is worth being told!
2. Think about your life experiences and note significant moments in your story. This includes both good and bad (ie. when you moved to a new city, when your parents got divorced, your relational history, when you first heard about Lordship etc.) You won’t end up including all these details in your testimony each time you share it, but you will certainly want to include some of them, depending on which ones relate most to your story.
3. Identify the first time when you received Jesus as savior and surrendered to Him as Lord. This should be the pivotal moment or climax of your testimony. If you aren’t sure exactly what moment you really “got saved” that’s OK, it may have been more of a process in your understanding and responding to truth. Be honest with people about that. But try to identify a point when something happened that led to a radical change.
4. Clearly identify the stages of your life in relationship to the Gospel. Outline your story. For example: 1) Before coming to Christ, 2) Point of response to Christ 3) My life as a follower of Christ. Making a simple outline can really help. I cannot emphasize this point enough!
5. Write down your story. Too many people think that there is something unspiritual about the discipline of writing down their testimony. If there was something unspiritual about writing we wouldn’t have the Bible (I’m just sayin’). The discipline of writing can tremendously help you to put your story into intelligible words. If people just tune out because you are rambling every time you try to tell them about Jesus, that does no one any good. While on paper you can review the wording of your testimony and edit it in a way that you can’t if it is merely a vague thought in the back of your mind. Through the process of writing and re-writing you can better organize your thoughts and prepare to clearly articulate the change
that has happened in your life.
6. Don’t talk so much about your past sinful experiences that it seems like you miss your life of sin now that you are a Christian. It can help people relate to you when you share some of the details of your life apart from Christ, but it shouldn’t sound like you miss your life of sin or had more fun sinning than you are now.
7. Make Jesus the hero of your story. Of course, He already is the hero, but are you presenting Him as the hero in your story. Though friends, churches or ministries may have played a significant part in that process (and it’s fine to honor them in your story) be sure people hearing you understand that it is Jesus that has saved you not just a relatable group of people or a catchy sermon series, or you learning how to live a better life.
8. Interpret your story in light of Biblical truth. Our experiences should ultimately be interpreted in light of already revealed truth. What people need to see at the end is how your story relates to God’s story (revealed in Scripture), that we are sinners deserving of judgment but can receive forgiveness and hope through Jesus.
9. Plan to share your testimony in three minutes or less. Sometimes you may have longer and sometimes you may need to merely summarize it in a short 30 second format (you could call this your “elevator” version). Most people aren’t going to get bored if you keep it brief. Allow them to ask for more details if they are interested.
10. Practice sharing your testimony. By rehearsing you are not being “fake”. If you expect to share your testimony with people who don’t yet know Jesus (and you should), you may get nervous when actually sharing your testimony. When we are nervous we often don’t say things the way we mean to. Practicing helps.
