Tell Your Story

Start with the order grace runs in: in John 9 it is Jesus who sees the blind man first, who puts the mud on his eyes without being asked — the man never even requested it (John 9:1-7); and later, when he is thrown out of the synagogue, it is Jesus who goes and finds him (John 9:35). A witness's confidence comes from having been found by Christ first. And notice that "witness" is a courtroom word: a witness does not have to render the verdict for the judge or argue the case for the lawyer. He is only responsible for telling truthfully what he saw. "I don't know if he is a sinner" — what you don't know, you can calmly say you don't know. "One thing I do know" — and that one thing nobody can overturn. You do not need to finish a seminary degree before you open your mouth. You need to be honest.

Shape your story into three parts you can tell in three minutes — around four hundred words, short enough for a lift, short enough not to kill a dinner conversation. Part one, before: two or three sentences is plenty. Describe the state you were in, not the lurid details — emptiness, anxiety, pride, what you were chasing. Don't compete over how bad it was, and don't expose anyone else's private business. Part two, the turning point: what you met — a verse that landed on you, a person who walked with you, a prayer in the middle of a crisis. Be specific; specific is what makes it believable. Part three, now: skip unverifiable lines like "I'm so happy these days" and say what can be checked — your temper, the drinking, the insomnia, who you forgave, what you have started hoping for. Then one last check: does the name of Jesus appear anywhere? If the story still works with him removed, it is a self-improvement story, and it needs another draft.

People remember the first half of 1 Peter 3:15, "always be ready," and swallow the second half, "with humility and fear." Peter was writing to a church that was being slandered — even answering the people baiting them was to be done gently. A testimony is not a debating contest: win the argument and lose the person, and you have won nothing. A preacher once put it well: evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. And the very next verse adds, "having a good conscience" (1 Pet 3:16) — when your life matches your story, the story stands up.

Three minutes with a stranger is not the hard part. Family is: they have seen every unflattering thing about your past and they can smell a lecture from the next room. With family, testimony is a long project — let the change be seen first: the temper reined in, the chores picked up, the phone calls more frequent, the honouring of parents turned into something concrete. When behaviour has laid the road, words can travel down it (1 Pet 3:1-2). Don't try to say it all at once; open one crack at a time. Plenty of parents nodded ten years after their child believed. You do the sowing; God gives the growth (1 Cor 3:6).