How to write a testimony? (Practical steps & FAQs)
1. What is a testimony?
Simply put, a clear and concise testimony shares how you personally experienced God in a way that prompted you to believe in or draw closer to Jesus.
In my book, I draw the parallel of sharing a testimony in court.
As a former journalist, I covered a handful of trials. When a witness was called to the stand, they testified to what they personally experienced or knew to be true.
What these witnesses were not asked to share — the opposing attorney would call “Objection!” to stop their answer — is information they did not personally experience.
My step-by-step testimony writing method has you take the same approach. To narrowly focus on your own personal experience with God.
If you’re wondering how to give your testimony …
Don’t preach.
Don’t teach.
Just share a story about your personal experience with God.
Before you begin writing, it can be helpful to read a few testimony examples to see the variety of approaches Christians take
(Psst. … The best way to receive new stories is via our newsletter.)
If you hang with me long enough, you’ll realize I use the term “story” interchangeably with “testimony,” as I found that it’s broader.
Remember, testimonies may share gentler stories of God’s work in the world, such as “God Winks.”
2. Testimony format: The best approach
Before I introduce our five-step process for how to write a Christian testimony (below), I want to address the question of testimony format.
It’s helpful to know how to structure your testimony before you begin writing, so let me introduce the three-act structure. This is a narrative structure you find in the Bible:
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God created the heavens and the earth, the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve.
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The fall happened, which separated us from God.
As a loving father, God began his plan to save his people.
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God sent his son, Jesus, who died and rose again in forgiveness of our sins so that all who believe in him can be reunited with God.
The resolution returns us to the beginning in a sense, as we will be with God in heaven.
The three-act structure is such a powerful storytelling format that you’ll find it everywhere.
In movies, novels, narrative nonfiction books, and when listening to friends swap stories around a campfire.
You’ll also find this testimony format in all the examples we publish!
I believe God wired us for story because that’s how we came to know his son, Jesus.
Through the narrative story shared in the Bible, and through the personal testimonies (i.e. stories) we share today.
Why use the Faith Storytellers testimony format?
By moving slowly through the storytelling process, you’ll also invite God to be part of your testimony creation by praying through your story with him.
The fourth step is especially important, so don’t skip that one! It will help you flesh out the details of your story.
I go into more depth in my book about how to seek God’s fingerprints in your story.
If you’re concerned with how to write a good Christian testimony, this is the step that improves stories the most.
Many storytellers have found that asking God to reveal how he loved us during challenging or hurtful parts of our story brought spiritual healing and growth.
3. How to write your testimony (5 steps)
While leading a faith storytelling class at my church, I developed this framework as a simple, straightforward approach for how to write your Christian testimony — no experience needed!
Writing is an iterative process, but these steps make it linear.
Our 5 step testimony writing process
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Ask God what story he would like you to share. Ask him to bring forward a specific moment in time where your relationship grew or changed.
The story should reflect how your personal relationship with God began, grew, or changed.
Your story does not have to be about your life's deepest, darkest moment.
Instead, consider writing a “God Winks” moment about an answered prayer or divine timing.
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Before you write your story, write a quick testimony outline.
This will help you stay focused on the one main point in your testimony about God.
Select three moments in time that show how your relationship with God began, grew, or changed over time.
It doesn’t have to be a happy ending in the “worldly” sense. Here’s an example.
Beginning moment
I prayed but doubted if God answered.
Middle with change moment
I surrendered my prayer to God and accepted his answer either way.
Resolution moment
• • God didn’t answer my prayer, but he gave me something better: A deeper relationship with him.
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Each scene will open with a quick reference to:
Where you are (location)
What’s around you (what you see, hear, smell, touch, etc.)
Your season and responsibility in life
It will then quickly move to the scene’s action (like a movie, it will jump into a specific moment of time)
You’ll then write about how you personally reacted to what happened. How did you physically, mentally, or spiritually respond?
You’l replace this order throughout your three scenes.
At the end, you’ll share a brief personal statement about what the story means to you.
Beginning (opposite of ending)
Quick context (location, description, season of life)
Action (what happened)
Reaction (how you felt about what happened, name your emotion)
Middle with change
Quick context
Action
Reaction
Ending with resolution (opposite of beginning)
Quick context
Action
Reaction
Personal faith statement.
Try finishing this sentence: “What I know to be true about God that I didn’t before is …”
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Adding spiritual details is what sets your story apart from a regular story.
Pray and ask God:
Where were you at the time?
How did you love me in the moment?
What divine fingerprints do you want me to find and share?
Continue to revise your story with God’s direction. Did you know that revision is the secret to writing?
Seriously, that’s the trick.
You may expand one draft, then cut sections back, then update a paragraph.
Refine your faith statement
Continue to refine your faith statement at the end so it’s specific. You’re looking for a “mic drop” moment.
Focus on one truth about God that you learned and shared over the course of your story.
While you may have learned many things about God, select the main one.
• Keep your personal faith statement to 1-2 sentences.
It’s counterintuitive, but the more you try to reiterate the point, the less likely your reader or audience will pay attention.
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The final step is to prepare your testimony. Continue to polish it. polishing it.
Here are a few tips I share in my book about crafting your testimony. Because we are sharing who God is, we don’t want to accidentally lead others astray.
If you state a false belief early in your story that God replaces with his truth later in the story, say that directly at the beginning: “I falsely believed God wouldn’t love me.”
If you experienced a miracle, acknowledge that it’s a mystery of why some people’s prayers for a miracle are answered while others are not. Then shift the focus to gratitude (or whatever feeling you have). “I don’t know why God answered my prayer for a miracle, and he doesn’t for others. I’m thankful …”
If God helped you make a decision that doesn’t universally apply to everyone (such as whether to get married, sell your house, etc.) acknowledge that this decision is specific to your circumstances. Your story isn’t about your decision, but rather, how your relationship with God deepened as you brought a decision to him and he guided you.
If you’re writing your story:
Read it slowly out loud to yourself. You’ll catch things you want to improve that you didn’t see when you read it silently.
Send it to a friend and ask them to share things that resonated with them about your story, as well as things that were unclear. It’s important to share the specific type of feedback you want!
Check the spelling, grammar, and your publisher’s writing style. Every publisher uses a different style. At Faith Storytellers, we use this one.
4. How do I create a Christian testimony outline?
I go into more detail about this in the “Faith Storytellers” book, because outlining your Christian testimony is a critical step.
It will help you stay focused on the one main truth you’re sharing through your testimony.
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A before moment.
This is typically a moment that is opposite of your resolution.
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This may be a specific moment or a more general shift you experienced over time.
The key is that something inside of you, spiritually, is changing. This internal shift may be in addition to external events changing around you.
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This is where you are now, thanks to your spiritual change.
This is typically the opposite of your “beginning” moment.
For example, falsely believing God does not love you and then, in your resolution, realizing God does love you.
In some cases, it mirrors your beginning, but in a deeper way.
For example, knowing God loves you as a child vs. the more mature understanding you have as an adult.
5. How do I start a testimony?
I can’t tell you how many times I got stuck when trying to start a story. It didn’t matter what I was writing.
The blank page and my desire to get it perfect on the first go kept me stalled.
The truth is that writers never get it perfect the first time around. Their first, second, and third drafts are messy.
It’s why my five-step writing process includes multiple revisions.
In the first draft, you’re writing to think. You’re still working out what you want to say.
In the second and third drafts, you’re deciding what to put in and what to cut out.
You’re also making decisions on how to say something, a step you can’t do until you’ve decided what to say.
One of the tricks I learned as a professional journalist is to start at the end and work backwards.
It’s actually the process I teach in my workshops (I ask for a volunteer to demonstrate the concept).
This works for any religious testimony, whether it’s a salvation story, a baptism testimony, or a God Winks experience.
Start a testimony with the end in mind
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Pray and ask God to reveal a moment that shows your belief and trust in him.
Resolution scene: Select a moment that epitomizes my faith in God at this specific time in my life.
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Select an opposite moment from your resolution, which you wrote in Step 1.
Beginning scene: Select a moment that is the opposite of the ending moment.
This may include a moment from childhood or young adulthood that contains a moment of doubt about the truth you identified in the ending scene.
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Identify a bridge moment that connects your beginning with your resolution.
Middle scene with change: This is the bridge scene, which helps show how you spiritually grew and changed from your beginning scene to the ending scene.
Sometimes this is a dramatic, “Road to Damascus” story.
Sometimes it’s a gentler shift as the faith you learned from your parents growing up becomes solidified over time as your own.
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Beginning: Typically, the opposite of your ending, it can also “mirror” your ending if you started with belief and then fell away before returning to faith.
Middle with change: The bridge scene, which helps show how you got from the beginning to the resolution.
Ending with resolution, Typically, the opposite of your beginning, it can also “mirror” your beginning if you started with belief and then fell away before returning to faith.
7. How do I write a testimony if I grew up in church?
Writing your personal testimony is the same whether you grew up in church or if you believed later in life.
While some Christians have a clear conversion moment, others can’t identify a specific moment in time when they came to believe in Jesus.
Instead, their faith grew slowly, almost like water slowly coming to a boil. They didn’t recognize their faith until it was already there.
If there’s one thing I want to communicate to Christians, it’s that a testimony is really just a story of God at work in your life.
In my book, I talk about how many Christians never have a “Road to Damascus” story, but that doesn’t make their testimony any less important or meaningful.
Tips for writing a testimony if you grew up with faith
Saying directly, “I grew up in church, and my faith grew gradually.”
This is such a common experience among Christians that your audience is sure to relate to it!
Focusing on how your relationship with God changed or deepened over time.
If you believed in Jesus as a 5-year-old, you had faith like a child, which is amazing!
Your story could share how you drew closer to God (or briefly fell away as a teen or young adult, as this testimony example shares) as you became an adult.
A testimony, simply, is sharing what you personally experienced firsthand.
That can include a moment where you felt or sensed God working in your life, such as this testimony example by a missionary that describes how God intervened to save his life.
Identify a false belief you had as a younger or less mature Christian.
Your story may explore how God rooted out and replaced this misbelief with his truth.
This is a sample testimony that does that.
Focus on one specific aspect of God’s character.
What did you learn to be true now about God that you didn’t before?
Not all stories have a clear before and after. They all share personal and spiritual change.
Focusing on a spiritual truth you learned, you’re incorporating change while sharing your beliefs clearly.
8. How do I write a testimony for baptism?
If you’re wondering how to write a testimony for baptism, you’ll use the same three-act structure and five-step process I described above.
If you are feeling intimidated, especially as a new believer, you’re not alone! It can be difficult to share your beliefs succinctly or with friends and family who don’t understand why you’re being baptized.
(It’s actually such a normal experience that I’ve heard from readers that they buy the book I wrote about writing a testimony and give it as a gift for adult baptisms!)
The main difference is how you select your scenes and how you phrase your faith statement at the very end.
You’ll want to focus your testimony on why you believe baptism is the right choice now.
Baptism testimony guidance
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If you’re feeling stuck, see the “how to start your testimony” section.
It can be helpful to work backwards and then reorder your scenes into a chronology.
Here’s a common testimony format for baptism:
Beginning scene: A moment in time that epitomizes your early faith, a false belief, or doubt in God that is reversed in the resolution scene.
Middle scene: A moment in time that shows how your relationship with God changed or shifted.
Resolution scene: The moment recently that made you realize that you want to be baptized.
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Faith statement prompt for baptism testimony
You’ll keep your testimony in a narrative format through the last sentence of your resolution scene. Then you’ll add a brief (1-2 sentence) faith statement at the end.
Here’s a faith statement prompt to help:
Faith statement: Finish this sentence, “What I know to be true about God now that I didn’t before is _____ and so I decided to be baptized because ______.” (Feel free to make this your own).
Keep your tense in the first person through the last sentence. This will prevent your audience from feeling like you’re teaching or preaching.
You’re inviting them to lean into your story (even if they don’t yet believe in God) when you stick to “I,” “me,” “my,” and “mine.”
9. How to write a salvation testimony?
A salvation testimony can be written using the three-act structure and the five-step Faith Storytellers Framework, which I shared above.
The main difference is that a salvation testimony specifically shares how you came to believe in Jesus.
That’s compared to testimonies that share God’s work in our lives after we believed.
If you’re still wondering how to write a salvation testimony, it’s helpful to know there are a few options for where to put your “come to Jesus” moment.
It’s important to note that not all testimonies are about conversion.
I go into more depth about what a testimony is in my book, and I share multiple examples from my own story.
Salvation testimony guidance
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This is the most common structure for a salvation testimony, because it clearly shows the difference Jesus made in your life.
Beginning: Select a moment that highlights a time when I began questioning or learning about faith.
Middle with change: A moment where I came to believe in Jesus.
Resolution: A moment that demonstrates the difference believing in Jesus has made in my life.
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For Christians who had long seasons of doubt or searching, structuring your salvation testimony with your “come to Jesus” moment at the end is particularly effective.
This is a great structure for former atheists or those who converted from another religion.
Beginning: Select a moment that epitomized my life as a non-believer
Middle with change: A moment that serves as the bridge between non-belief and belief.
Resolution: A moment where I came to believe in Jesus.
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For Christians who grew up in church, try writing your salvation testimony so it begins with your belief, such as growing up in church.
Many believers (including me!) can’t pinpoint a specific “before-and-after” moment, so don’t worry about that — many people will relate to your testimony!
Beginning: A moment that shows how I came to believe in Jesus. If you’ve always believed, you can say that directly here.
Middle with change: A moment that reflects a shift in my belief, such as making it my own, falling away in college, coming back to church as a young adult, or deepening my faith in a meaningful way.
Resolution: A moment that shows the impact of my deepened faith and what it means to me today.
10. How to tell your testimony (public speaking)
Once your testimony is prepared and you’ve revised and polished it following the five-step process we teach, you’re then ready to share your testimony!
If you’re sharing your story with an audience and feeling nervous, you’re not alone.
Many of us are nervous or scared before we speak in front of a group.
That’s especially true when you’re sharing something as personal and meaningful as a testimony.
My No. 1 public speaking tip: Practice telling your testimony out loud, not just in your head.
This develops muscle memory and helps you stay on track when you actually share, as you’ve already spoken your story many times!
Looking for more tips? Check out our tips for Christian testimonies shared via public speaking.
Resources for Christian writers
Testimony resources
➡️ Quiz: What’s your storytelling strength?
➡️ How to share my testimony (resource guide)
➡️ Christian testimony public speaking tips
➡️ Testimony guardrails: How to keep your story safe & honoring
➡️ Christian writing prompts for personal faith storytelling
➡️ How to submit your testimony online
Writing resources
➡️ The best writing craft book on personal Christian storytelling
➡️ 30 great gifts for Christian writers
➡️ Christian writer conferences to attend (updated annually)
➡️ Christian writers conference packing list
➡️ Writing advice: Your book is not for everyone
➡️ Christian writing prompts for personal faith storytelling
➡️ Spiritual journaling prompts: The awe of God (with Bible verses)
➡️ The 10 best devotional journals to grow your faith
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Mackenzie Ryan Walters is the author of “Faith Storytellers: Unleash the Power of Your Story,” which shares Christian testimonies and stories, as well as curated lists about Christian books, gifts, and more. A national award-winning former journalist who’s covered a presidential campaign, been inside NASA, and reported on education and schools, Mackenzie now edits the Faith Storytellers website and is passionate about lifting up and sharing the story God is writing in the world.