Your testimony is one of the most powerful tools you can use to share Christ with others and make disciples. Not only is it your own, but nobody can say it’s not true because it’s what happened to you. A well crafted, well timed and well delivered testimony can be the key factor in reaching someone for Christ.
During Foundations, we will do a “Testimony Workshop”. During the workshop you will craft your testimony in a form that is effective and easy to share with others. You will want to have three versions, I call the 3 minute, the 30 second, and the 3 second version.
We don’t always have time to share our life story with someone. If you can succinctly and clearly share your full testimony in under 5 minutes, you will be more effective in sharing it (I call this the 3 minute version). From that full testimony, you should be able to boil it down to the most important points that you can deliver in less than a minute (I call the 30 second version). And for those chance encounters where you only have time to share a line or two, be able to share something in 5 seconds or less (I call the 3 second version).
Here’s mine so you have an idea what I am talking about.
TESTIMONY OF
DAVID SIDNEY JOHNSON
or, How I Became a Christian
3 Minute Version:
I grew up in the Catholic Church with my faithful parents bringing me to church each and every Sunday. I learned some very valuable things in the Catholic Church. The most important thing I learned is that I’m a dirty miserable rotten sinner destined for hell! That’s a pretty good thing to learn. After all, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know it’s a problem. Another very valuable thing I learned is that I didn’t know what the psalmist knew. How did he know the things about God that he wrote about? I had no clue. The other good thing the Catholic church did for me was impress on me the importance of reading my bible. I didn’t really know how to read it and had no real hope of learning how, but I did feel reading it was of utmost importance and figured failing to read the bible would be one of my life’s great failures.
As I went about pursuing my dreams and goals as we all do, I was completely clueless of what I was doing spiritually. All I knew was I was not capable of doing what the Catholic church was doing and saying. But early on in my career as an Air Force fighter pilot, the Lord began working in my life. He kept moving me from place to place where I didn’t know a single soul, was far from home, and I just started getting tired of starting over every year or two. I began to get lonelier and lonelier, and that is the tool God used to call me to Himself – loneliness. It forced me to seek Him.
One day on a plane to a training course in Phoenix Arizona, God sat me next to a Catholic lady who began to share about her prayer group that met every Friday and had become a great blessing to her and her friends. She shared a bible verse with me, Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” This became the first bible verse I committed to memory and I started doing just that, calling out to God.
As I continued through this 3 month course in the Fall of 1990, I could sense God moving in my life but just didn’t know how to follow His call. I remember saying to myself, maybe even out loud, a common thing people say, “I need a miracle.”
That Christmas Eve, in a Catholic Church in Tucson where I was visiting my parents, God did that miracle in my heart when somehow He brought me to the point where I realized I would never be happy until I put Him first in my life. Don’t ask me how He did that, but the famous bible verse came to mind at that very moment, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matt 6:33 I had never even memorized that verse, but that was the only way I could figure out how to answer what God was doing in my life and in my heart. So right there, Christmas Eve service, Catholic Church, 1990, I made that very decision, to put God first in my life.
From that day forward, everything changed. The Lord began putting people in my life who knew how to follow God. I was then stationed in Valdosta, Georgia, and some guys in my squadron attended a local Presbyterian Church, Westminster PCA. I began attending and for the first time in my life, what was being said from the pulpit was actually explaining God’s Word clearly and making sense to me. That began a transformation in my life where I began to hear God’s Word and understand it, and bear fruit. I began to read the bible with understanding, and before I knew it, had read the entire bible a few times through within a few short years. God had changed the biggest failure in my life to the greatest victory!
It was also at that time that I met and married my wife, Yoli Elena, who also was a Christian. We were moved by the Air Force to Colorado Springs where we attended Village Seven Presbyterian church. It was there the light bulb really came on when we participated in their Evangelism Explosion program, and I came to really understand the good news of the gospel for the very first time.
And now, 20 some odd years later, the Lord has continued to lead me, teach me, and help me to understand His call for my life – discipleship. It is that call that I hope to share with you and others and help you become a dedicated believer, trained and serving in your mission field.
30 Second Version:
Growing up Catholic, the only thing I knew was that I didn’t know what the psalmist knew. Oh, and that I was a dirty rotten sinner destined for hell! But through a series of circumstances, God brought me to the place where I realized I would never be happy until I put Him first in my life. At Christmas Eve service, Catholic church, 1990 in Tucson Arizona, I responded to the famous verse, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matt 6:33 I put Him first in my life that night and He has lead, taught and guided me ever since. It is this experience and growth that I hope to share with each of you and help you put your faith in God, grow in Him, and become a dedicated believer who can answer the Great Commission of Christ to Go and make disciples of all nations.
3 Second Version:
God brought me to the place where I realized I would never be happy until I put Him first in my life. I responded to Matt 6:33 , “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Good Ground Az 