10 Tips for How to Always Have a Great Illustration PART 1

Whether you're a teacher, preacher, or Sunday school teacher, you're always looking for ways to illustrate what you're communicating. Here are 10 tips to help you come up with fresh and personal illustrations.  

#1 - Create a List of Funny, Bizarre or Otherwise Interesting Stories From Your Life

Every person I've met has some great stories from their life. Most of us have countless stories we've forgotten.  Just yesterday I was reading an old blog I wrote when I was college. Apparently the day I wrote the blog was a college visitation weekend, and there was a campus wide scavenger hunt. While I was in my room studying, two boys I didn't know charged into my room and starting going through all of my drawers as if I wasn't there.  I have absolutely no memory of the incident. I remember the weekend, but not the interesting part.

If you regularly communicate, one of the best things you can do for yourself, is make a large inventory of the stories from your life.  

Another advantage of having this type of list is that you can keep a record of when you've used certain stories.  With my students that are graduating this month, I suspect I could deliver an entire message filled with illustrations where all I did was describe the story in brief.

#2 - On a Weekly Basis Write Down Anything Interesting that Happened

This is a practical step for continuing to grow your database of life stories.  Often when teaching, I will try to intentionally find at least one illustration to use from my life from the past week.  However, I frequently do this because early on in preaching I over-used most of my life stories, and over-illustrated points.

If you're diligent about writing down all the unique moments in a given week, you'll likely never be short of personal illustrations.

In this last week for me:

• I've been to four graduations.
• At one graduation the person giving the charge to the graduates went on a religions, political, and controversial rant for 30 minutes, and people were leaving in droves.
• Secretly mowed my neighbors backyard (which had weeds taller than me) so that I could even more secretly let my dogs go to the bathroom in his backyard not mine.
• I got very lost in a hospital and accidentally walked into the doctor office area.
• I drove a college track coach around the Austin area.
• I discovered one of my cousin's kids is one of only three high school girls in Arkansas history to run a mile at her fastest time.

None of these are home run stories I'll be telling for life, but in the right context, one of these might be the perfect story.

#3 - Look for the Obvious Metaphors Built Into What You're Communicating

Sometimes we struggle to find illustrations when they're right in front of us.  As a preacher, I obviously use the Bible as my source material.  The Bible is filled with metaphors and illustrations.  

Take for example this section of James.

James 3 

³ When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. ⁴ Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. ⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

There are three big visual illustrations in the text.  As preacher, James did all the hard work for me.  

#4 - Look for a Modern Equivalency and Tell a Story

This is a bit of a follow up to the previous point.  Take this section from the verse above:

⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

When teaching on this passage, you can easily look up a recent story about wild fire. There are countless stories of massive fires started by something insignificant.  In the same way, we all have a story of how gossip has ruined a friendship. Something small was said, and it led to deeply hurt feelings.

#5 - Look for Audience Equivalency and Tell a Story

Think about the daily lives of your audience.  Think about how the text or the principles apply directly to their lives. Then think of a story which matches that scenario.

There will be 5 more tips tomorrow!