Andrew Lim
February 18th, 2007

It was only a matter of time I guess.

I was doing a lot of itinerant speaking at various churches.

And then one day… it happened.

I was at a wedding. A young man got up to give the sermon, and I heard my own sermon illustration read back to me by the preacher as though he’d thought it up himself!

Oh well, at least it was a good one.

I’m reminded of a great piece of advice from an older and wiser preacher about using other people’s material: When you take from one person, it’s stealing. When you take from everyone, it’s research.

Got a sermon coming up? Doing a youth talk? Need a snappy illustration to make the point in a Bible study? Here’s some “research” to help you with your talks / Bible studies:

Bible.org has a database of illustrations searchable by topic or Bible reference. Some are great, some are awful. Interestingly enough, it also provides suggested structural break-ups and cites resources for further study on particular verses. Sift it like wheat from chaff.

PreachingToday.com also has a database of searchable illustrations. However, only a few are freely available. To access the rest, you have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Much like Bible.org, one of the main problems with this is that almost all the citations are from American publications, and most of the illustrations have an American flavour (or should that be flavor?). For example, sports illustrations on baseball, gridiron, etc.

Perspective has a limited number of illustrations, but at least it’s a local Aussie site. (Oh, and you can find my ripped-off illustration among the ones on offer!)

There’s a starting list, but let me and other SydneyAnglicans readers know about the best online sources you can find!

But the best source of illustrations?

Your own experience! The best illustration I have is the one when I decided to take a run on the beautiful crescent of white sand at Fingal Bay on the Central Coast next to crystal-clear blue waters on a magical sunny day… but of course, to get the point you’re going to have to listen to one of my sermons ;)

Cautious recommendations:

For something different, there’s a collection of hand-drawn cartoons on books like Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians at Cornstalker.com. Make of it what you will.

SermonSpice attempts to provide short videos to accompany sermons, but I have yet to find a really useful example. Worship House Media does similar stuff, but with marginally better content. When it comes to video, you’re better off looking at YouTube - check out my previous article called In Search Of...YouTube

Andrew is Sydneyanglicans.net’s resident digital scholar and the pastor of the Asian Bible Church (ABC), a congregation of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney. ABC, it’s easy as 1-2-3, do-re-mi…