I feel somewhat chagrined about submitting a post on sermon illustrations. How can the mundane task of sermon preparation compare with the exciting furors involving the latest convention news? Still, even the most exciting drama on television stops for commercial breaks. When I was a pastor, I estimated that I preached 46 Sundays each year. Our church also had Sunday and Wednesday evening services. So, that made for a significant preaching/teaching load in a given year, not to mention preaching year after year.
When I studied at Southwestern Seminary my preaching professor, Dr. Al Fasol, taught us expository preaching. (Some now call it “text-driven preaching.”) We prepared three lengthy exegesis papers as well as three complete sermon manuscripts. Believe me, he taught us how to develop an expository outline from a biblical text. He taught us well, and I still mainly preach expository sermons. So, developing an outline for each sermon did not present a problem; however, finding good, fresh illustrations did present a problem, a continuing problem.
I searched for illustrations from many different sources. I gathered illustrations from devotional books and booklets, like Our Daily Bread and Open Windows. Sometimes, I heard a good illustration in the seminary chapel or at the Pastors Conference or the SBC annual meeting. I found that I had to write those out immediately, or I would forget them. I purchased sermon illustration books, but honestly those books seldom provided a fresh illustration. Most of the illustrations seemed old and dated.
Radio and television programs sometimes suggested an illustration. For example, one morning we were driving to Southern Seminary, and we heard an advertisement on the radio, asking women with beautiful feet to call an 800 number. That intrigued me, so I investigated and learned that a marketing company needed women with beautiful feet to model a new line of hosiery. Of course, that illustration made for a good introduction to a sermon on Romans 10:13-15. Jesus used illustrations from daily life in his teaching, and that is still a great source, probably the best source. The trick is to be alert to these as you encounter them. Again, you’ve got to record or write them down quickly.
Storing and retrieving illustrations is another challenge. I developed and maintained a sermon illustration file. I wrote or pasted the illustrations on 3 by 5 cards and arranged the cards topically. (Old school! Yes, I know.) I kept the cards in a big wooden box that originally was the card catalog for a small library. That was some years ago, and now I can search for material on the internet. Many sermon libraries, like those of W. A. Criswell and Adrian Rogers, are digitized and online and permit the preacher to search the database. However, one must be careful about this. What was current and fresh in 1975 may not be today. This is also a caution for those who love to read Spurgeon. Read him, by all means, but remember his illustrations were fresh 150 years ago. Preachers can purchase a filing system that will help them organize their sermon material.
What about our dear readers on SBC Voices? Do you struggle to find fresh illustrations? What sources have been helpful to you? How do you store and retrieve illustrations? Hopefully, your suggestions will aid your fellow preachers. And, for the non-preachers who read Voices—What kind of illustrations do you find interesting and helpful?
This is definitely a struggle. I find that many of my illustrations come from the following:
-Scripture. I draw on portions of Scripture (especially narrative and parable) to illustrate the text I’m preaching.
-Current events. I read the news from numerous sources every day. Drawing from real-life events that are fresh and already on the minds of my listeners is perhaps the best way to help bridge the gap between the biblical world and present day. This also helps with application.
-Fiction. I read novels. While I don’t share stories from novels, I find that reading fiction helps stir my creative juices. This also helps my story-telling ability.
I use Evernote to store my illustrations. Keeps them right in my phone or other device plus very searchable. I try to get illustrations from as many sources as possible to see what works with my congregation. For example, my folks care nothing about sports, so I use very few sports illustrations, but they are all farmers, so I use a lot of farm illustrations.
Tony, you make a great point. The illustrations should relate to the lives of your members. Agricultural illustrations are great for your folks, but they would be incomprehensible to the members at a university Baptist church.
First of all, this is in no way a boring article, I wish there was an article on preaching every week! I would definitely like to improve in sermon illustrations and their presentation in my preaching. For me, although I have stolen many an illustration from other preachers, I have found that true stories that we witnessed or at least were connected to resonate very well with listeners. If you have been in the ministry very long you have about a million of those and you don’t have to write them down or file them. The reason for this is that illustrations are more powerful the more believable they are. Dr. Joel Gregory stresses the need to have facts and dates in illustrations to make them believable.
Also, finding good illustrations is just half the battle. The other half is learning how to tell illustrations well. It’s like being able to deliver the punch line to a joke, the skill comes more naturally to some than it does to others. My suggestion here is to listen to preachers who are rather adept at delivering illustrations. The two best at this in opinion are Dr. Tony Evans and Dr. Joel Gregory.
Yes, the illustration is one thing; the delivery of it is quite another. I’ve noticed that the great preachers are also good story tellers. I heard about one preaching professor who required his students to listen to Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon stories. Keillor is a master story-teller for sure.