During a recent sermon, I shared an illustration I have used during counseling sessions over the years. It was very different doing this illustration in the pulpit, rather than in front of one or two persons across a desk. And I typically do not use any type of multimedia in my preaching. I typically just go to the pulpit with my Bible, and a half-sheet a sermon notes, if necessary. But I tried something a little different. And I think it got the point across I was trying to make about loving difficult people and being faithful in difficult relationships. After a...

There is a sermon illustration I have used over the years in preaching about personal change, spiritual conversion, and new beginnings. It's called, Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, by Portia Nelson. I am often asked to repeat it or where it can be found. Well, here it is… Chapter 1 – I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. Chapter 2 – I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the...

To illustrate is to shed light on a subject. Illustrations are like windows in a house. They let the light in. They can also let in voyeurs, seeking to eye the forbidden. Voyeurism is not just the vice of those who want to see what they should not see. It is also the vice of those who want to show what they should not show. There is no place for voyeurism in the pulpit. Sermon illustrations should be like letting sunlight into a window, not like putting a spotlight on a stage. Here are 10 guidelines for avoiding indecent exposure...

There is an illustration from the life of Maurice, a Roman emperor, who found comfort from Psalm 119:137 in an unbelievable crisis. In the preaching moment last night, I passed right by this illustration. And by the time I recognized it, I was too far ahead to go back to get it. But I have been enriched and encouraged by this story and want to share it anyway. During the 20 years he ruled the Roman Empire, he had shown virtues, marking him out to succeed Tiberius II. But the army turned against him and in 602 he fled, wit...

During the 1870 annual conference of the Methodists of Indiana, the president of the college where the group met began to talk about the exciting age they were living in. The presiding bishop asked, “What do you see?” The college president responded, “I believe we are coming into a great time of inventions. I believe, for example, that men will fly through the air like birds.” The bishop said, “This is heresy! The Bible says that flight is reserved for the angels. We will have no such talk here.” Thank God the bishop’s sons, Wilbur and Orville Wright, did not...