We all love a good story. Often, impactful stories are tools which can influence others in powerful ways. The Bible is full of people sharing stories of how God radically changed their lives. The sharing of these stories and testimonies often brought about life change in others as God used the stories to open their eyes to the beauty of God’s Good News.
Telling your personal testimony or a story of how God has worked in your life is a way to share the gospel with others by explaining your personal salvation experience or point of spiritual significance. It gives others an example of how God changes lives and gives glory to Him. It is one of the most effective means of sharing your faith because, although a person can try to refute the validity of the Gospel, they will have trouble denying the life change that they hear about in your personal testimony.
It is important to learn how to share your personal testimony concisely, clearly and briefly to be effective with your hearers. After learning how to share it this quickly, you may see new doors open to share the gospel. You will sometimes find yourself in a situation where you can spend more than three minutes, but it is very easy to expand upon the story after you have shared its key points.
Here’s a suggested outline for you to work through. If you’d like to print off a pdf version of this guide, click here.
Point of Spiritual Significance
- Spend time identifying a specific point of spiritual significance, life change or when you came to know Christ.
- It is helpful to choose a certain theme or “thread” to take through your story. Examples could be finding contentment in Christ, finding freedom from a certain sin or the forgiveness of your sins.
Life Context
- What was your life like before this point of significance? What lies were you believing? How did your life show that you were in rebellion against God or an aspect of truth?
- How did God bring you to this point of spiritual significance?
Point of Belief
- Explain how believing in the Gospel, a truth about God or his character changed you.
- How did God’s truth contrast with the lie(s) you had believed?
- How did God’s forgiveness, love or mercy change you?
Life Transformed
- After that point of belief, how has your life changed as a result?
- What life changes did you make in response to conviction or a revelation of God?
- How has God brought joy, freedom, redemption, healed relationships, etc.?
- Spend a short time wrapping up and “tying the thread” or theme of your story.
- End with an invitation:
- It can be a question about how the story relates to them, an encouragement to believe a certain aspect about God in your story, etc.
Other Considerations:
- Make sure your story is God-centered, not a “you” centered story
- Be honest and don’t embellish your story
- Be respectful of people you may talk about in your story
- Use language that is plain to Christians and non Christians (example: don’t use words like sanctification)
- Be ready to tailor your story to different audiences to make it relatable.