Looking for a good sermon illustration your next sermon idea? We talk about our process and then recommend some sources for explaining, proving and showing what application of our messages looks like.
In the old days our preaching professors taught us how to manage a sermon illustration database. We had file cabinets or notebooks or file folders with clippings from the paper or photo copies of books we read. Then people started putting these on their computers with software like the program sold by the original makers of QuickVerse Bible Software. Bible Illustrator linked some databases of illustrations to the Bible text from QuickVerse and made them searchable via keyword. Others put them in the old Cards application that came pre-installed with Windows 3.1. A lot of people put them in a word processor or text file. Then the Bible software companies started to include sermon illustration databases in their programs. We showed some books like this available in Accordance Bible Software. Logos and WORDsearch and most of the other big names in Bible software offer these collections.
Unfortunately, most of the sermon illustration books or databases available online, in Bible software or even in book form totally stink. They’re stories from the 1800s or incredibly generic. How many times do we find one that doesn’t fit, but it’s close and it’s really good.
Listen below or watch the YouTube video of our podcast above and learn how we find fresh content from our own experiences, from a Google search or pictures and video files that make that sermon illustration come to life.
