Finding Illustrations
Mar 8, 2008 at 10:20AM
RichKao in Leadership Skills
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Every pastors craves for great sermon illustrations.  There have been times where I've spent more time researching and looking for great illustrations than preparing the actual content of the message!  How does one find illustrations?  Of course, there is the normal method of reading a lot, filing stories, and scouring the internet.  This should be our normal m.o.  But I've also found a little short cut that can literally save you hours of time --- find the illustrations you need in other sermons, not on illustration sites.   There are many sermon library sites online.  Go to your favorite site and search for messages that relate to your sermon.  You will instantly see hits that relate to your topic.  Then cull through those sermons for illustrations.  Almost invariably, you will find examples, stories that relate to what you want to share.  By searching for illustrations within related sermons, you've just utilized the preaching communities research and the examples fit because you're looking for them  in the context of  what you want to share.  The issue isn't finding great illustrations, the issue is finding illustrations that fit in the flow and context of what you want to communicate.  That's the genius of it searching inside of related sermons. Give it try.   I bet it'll work for you. (Reminder: give credit when credit is due.)

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