I have often said that some of the best multimedia that can be used in preaching has nothing to do with videos or PowerPoint. It is the old fashioned object lesson that people often think of when they are looking for a good children’s sermon. Many pastors quip that their children’s messages are often more effective than their “real” sermons. That is true for this reason. The kids and the congregation have an item to focus on that allows them to see, maybe even touch it, as they hear the message. Seeing and hearing are two powerful forms of multimedia. Each by itself is not as effective. Together they are very effective. Studies have shown that using two media simultaneously to communicate is more than twice as effective; it is many times more effective than the spoken word alone.

I was listening to a recent Preaching Today CD. They had a preacher by the name of Kevin Miller. He is the VP of resources for Christianity Today Journal. He had some rules that I want to summarize.

1. Simple is usually more effective. Don’t get too complicated because then you spend more time managing the illustration. I once used something as simple as a Hershey’s Kiss to illustrate the concept of the power of something very small.
2. Make sure it is big enough to be seen by the entire congregation. If it is too small for your venue, then people won’t see it.
3. Make sure it is appropriate to the message. It has to really match the idea. If it feels stretchd or gimmicky, then it will detract from the message rather than add to it.
4. Use them sparingly. If you do one every week, then people will begin to expect them. Then when you do not use one, the message will feel like it is missiong something. Also, if you use one every week then you will diminish the power and impact of using an object. Make it sparing enough to keep it interesting but not so seldom that it always seems very strange. I use one at least four to eight times a year in my own preaching. And I never use more than one in a single sermon.

Hope this helps.

When I was a small child, my mother began reading C.S. Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to me. It was truly a joy. It opened up that mystical and fastastic world to me. Later, as a college Philosophy Major I took a course on the writings of Lewis and once again some amazing worlds were opened up to me in two other great books … Perelandra and his almost uknown book Till We Have Faces. A few years ago I learned that one of my favorite stories of all time would become a major motion picture. The result is what was released today – The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

My family and I bought our tickets from Fandango and piled into the car, after a quick stop at the Micky D’s drive through, we sant down in the Standing Room Only theatre and waited through 20 minutes of previews. Finally the screen went blank and the movie started. I was amazed and smiled through most of the film. The only exception was the scene where Aslan walks into the dark night with young Susan and Lucy following, offering him company on his final night before … (don’t want to ruin it for you).

The stand out parts of this film are as follows …

1. The kids are wonderful actors, especially the bright-eyed Lucy.
2. The picture is visually stunning.
3. The story is beautifully told with only a few minor additions and only one or two glaring oversights. (Aslan’s father across the sea is never mentioned.)

Let me just say I am still in awe of this film. I am already looking forward to purchasing a DVD or maybe even forking over some more money to see it in the theatre.

Go see this movie. And remember one thing: Aslan is Jesus.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs from Logos Bible Software. It talks about a new feature in their latest version which is still in Beta. The blog talks about a feature in the exegetical guide, which allows you to enter your passage and it searches for all the exegetical information about that verse or passage. The information includes original language grammar and definitions. As part of the resulting search there is a little graph that shows how much that word is used in each book of the New Testatment.

This picture is of a recent search I did on a passage I am preaching from John 8:12. You can see that the list of words gives defentions of the Greek words from this passage. But the blown up art shows the graph on the right side. It has blue lines for the gospels. Green for Pauline writings. You get the idea. So as you can see the Greek word for “again” (HCSB) is palin. It is in Mark and John quite a bit. Later down the list you can see a word like autos, which is the word for “them” in Greek. It is used a lot through the NT. This could be helpeful, especially if a word is obscure an has few usages outside a text. Just a neat feature and shows why Logos is one of the best software packages out there. It is also one of the most expensive. But you get what you pay for.

Another great feature of the Exegetical Guide is that it lists the verse in the Greek New Testament, lists hits from Grammar Search and from Word Search. As you mouse over the word in the Greek text, it displays a little box with an X over the word in the word list. That way you can quickly find the word you are interested in. If you click a word in the Greek text at the top, it will remove it from the list. That way only the words you want to study are listed. Gets rid of the clutter.

Then in the word list it show s the Greek word followed by the translation and the versions of the Greek New Testament it is found in. That way you can click on the UBS4 and it will open to that verse. Below that it gives the parsing info. You can then click the word (like verb) and it will open a resource to explain it. Below that are the lexicons that word is found in. Click one and it shows the lexicon open to that word. Or just click the + sign and it opens the entry right there below the word. There will be an X inside a circle. Click it again to close it.

This all makes doing original language work much easier for both the beginner, intermediate user, and the advanced user.