| This Week at PreachingIllustrations.com is a free newsletter from PreachingIllustrations.com that provides 5 free sermon illustrations per week. These illustrations contain no vague stories, "urban legends" or anonymous quotes. The stories are researched using multiple sources and are freshly written so that there are no copyright implications. Each illustration is included in the database because it packs an emotional punch that will help drive home your preaching point. |
| Illustrations for Easter 6 — Cycle B |
Acts 10:44-48
In 1870, Daniel Crawford was born in Gourock, Scotland. In 1889, he traveled to Central Africa as a missionary and remained 22 years.
Upon his return to Great Britain, a member of the British Cabinet asked Crawford: "I would like your eyes. I would like to experience the surprise that you must be having in seeing the difference between 22 years ago and now. What is the biggest thing you have seen in the way of change?"
Crawford's surprising answer was: "One of the greatest differences between now and 25 years ago that I noticed is this: modern materialism has robbed the modern young man of his smile. When I came into town the other morning in 'the tube,' there were thirteen young English sphinxes before me, with a strained, almost 'struggle-for-life' look on their faces. Twenty-five years ago I would have had before me thirteen genial, joyful Englishmen dissolving smiles."
He went on to say, "A smile is like the flag that flies over Buckingham Palace. When the flag floats the English people know that the king is in the palace. When there is a smile on the Christian's face everyone knows that God dwells in his heart."
1 John 5:1-6
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told this story at an August 4, 2002, Sunday school class at National Presbyterian Church in Washington DC:
"Although I never doubted the existence of God, I think like all people I've had some ups and downs in my faith. When I first moved to California in 1981 to join the faculty at Stanford, there were a lot of years when I was not attending church regularly. I was a specialist in international politics, so I was always traveling abroad. [One] Sunday morning, I went to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church [in Palo Alto]. The minister that Sunday morning gave a sermon I will never quite forget. It was about the 'prodigal son' from the point of view of the elder son.
"It set the elder son up not as somebody who had done all the right things but as somebody who had become self-satisfied; a parable about self-satisfaction and content and complacency in faith [and] that people who didn't somehow expect themselves to need to be born again can be complacent. I started to think of myself as that elder son who had never doubted the existence of God but wasn't really walking in faith in an active way anymore.
"I started to become more active with the church, to go to Bible study and to have a more active prayer life. It was a very important turning point in my life."
NEW — Cycle B Sermons
for Pentecost through Proper 12
 
John 15:9-17
"I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no more hurt, but only more love." -- Mother Teresa
NEW — Cycle B Sermons
for Proper 13 through Proper 22
 
Obedience
In 1870, Prussia had laid siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Pierre Barlot was an artillery man at Fort Mont-Valerien, the strongest fortress protecting the city. One day he was standing by his cannon when General Noel, the French commander, came up and with his spyglass, spotted the Sevres Bridge. "Gunner," he said, "do you see the Sevres Bridge over there?" "Yes, sir." "And that little shanty in a thicket of shrubs to the left?" "I see it, sir," said Pierre, turning pale. "It's a nest of Prussians; try it with a shell, my man."
Pierre turned paler still. He sighted his weapon deliberately, carefully, then fired it. "Well hit, my man, well hit!" exclaimed the general. But as he looked at Pierre he was surprised to see a great tear running down the gunner's cheek. "What's the matter, man?"
"Pardon me, General," said Pierre, "it was my house -- everything I had in the world."
NEW — Cycle B Sermons
for Proper 23 through Christ The King
Loving Others
On March 2, 2012, Stephanie Decker was at home when her husband texted that a tornado was moving directly toward their three-story home in Henryville, Indiana.
Stephanie gathered up her young son and daughter and they made their way to the basement. Stephanie covered her children with a blanket, and then the three huddled in a corner of the basement. The tornado directly hit the Decker home destroying it. The wreckage broke seven of Stephanie's ribs and almost completely severed both of her legs.
"I had two steel beams on my legs, and I couldn't move. I was stuck," she said.
Then, another storm came roaring through. She again covered her children the best she could, taking the brunt of the debris as her home collapsed around her.
"Everything started hitting my back. Beams, pillars, furniture. Everything was just slamming into my back. But I had my children in the blanket, and I was on top of them, and I was reaching around holding them," Stephanie said.
Stephanie lost parts of both legs, but she survived. Amazingly, her love for her children protected them and neither child suffered as much as a scratch.
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