Each year, as a part of our stewardship campaign, we have men from our church give stewardship testimonies. We generally have a testimony every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night for a month, and two or three additional testimonies at our stewardship banquet.

These testimonies have been a great source of help and encouragement to our people, and I would like to share a brief outline of how we use these testimonies in the hope that you will find them beneficial to your church.

1. The Profit

They establish the truth the pastor has been preaching.
“That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.”—Matthew 18:16b

Of course, anything the Bible says is so, whether others bear witness to it or not. But in the minds of people, to hear that God’s Word has been proven true in the lives of their peers is a powerful verification.

They exhort the people.
What a blessing it is to hear lay people telling other lay people that if they don’t tithe, they are thieves. When lay people tell other lay people that if they’re willing to trust God and increase their giving, God will wonderfully bless and provide for them, it exhorts and encourages your church to do more for God.

2. The Procedure

Picking the testimonies
I ask the financial secretary (the person who keeps track of people’s giving records) for a list of good ideas. They will give me people who give in an unusually generous manner, who have begun tithing recently, or have significantly increased their giving in the last year or so.

I select people from that list and call them myself or ask the secretary to call them. I ask them to include these elements in their testimony:

• How they started tithing
• Lessons they have learned since they began to tithe
• A time when they increased their giving and how God blessed them
• A challenge to the people to begin tithing if they don’t and increase their giving if they do

3. The Purpose

In addition to the aforementioned points, I wish for my people to hear from a broad spectrum of their peers (some who are well off, some who are of modest means, some who are new Christians, and some who have been saved for years) that God is faithful to His Word. Paul said to the Corinthians, “Your zeal hath provoked very many” (2 Corinthians 9:2b).