We’ve all been there …
You’re sitting at your desk /home office/Starbucks/the bathroom and you’re working on that week’s talk. But the longer you work on it, the more panicked you get at how … how … boring it seems. And that’s when it hits you.
The illustration.
The perfect story, or memorable moment, or video clip.
For me there’s nothing better than one of these “light bulb” moments. It makes me feel like I’m teaching an ancient message in a brand new way (because I’m pretty sure St. Augustine of Hippo never wore a chicken suit on stage to illustrate the doctrine of atonement! … of course he was from Hippo which is funny, but I’m digressing here.)
The truth is though that while illustrations ARE powerful, that power can work both ways. It can cement a spiritual message in a student’s mind for years … or it can just confuse them. It can power your talk through to the end … or derail it.
So how do we choose good illustrations? Here are four basic rules I’m learning.
1) Never, ever, ever let the “color” preempt the core.
Have you ever watched a sports game where the color commentator kept stepping on the play-by-play guys’ toes? If so, then you know how frustrating it is when the flow of a presentation gets sabotaged by “creativity.”
The truth is that most (not all of us, but most) youth pastors have two traits in common: 1) we’re a bit ADD, and 2) we think in pictures and analogies (because words are boring!). But I’ve found it helpful to force myself to identify the one thing the text is saying – the one thing I want to communicate – before I let any illustration enter my mind. Until I find that one thing, every other idea is in the scrap heap. Otherwise I start preaching the story rather than Scripture.
2) Be ruthless in choosing illustrations.
Most of us have probably heard that we need to reengage with a teenage audience every 5-8 minutes of a talk. But sometimes this leads to taking the easy way out: we show a video, or tell a story, or use a funny picture that really doesn’t illustrate the point at all, but it makes us feel better about “connecting with our audience.”
But it’s possible to engage the audience while still protecting the idea – if we’re willing to fight laziness. Be ruthless in finding the perfect illustration, not the easy or cool one. Don’t settle for your first idea, if you know your first idea isn’t great.
A great example of this was something Josh Griffin did a few months ago, when he shattered a mirror with a hammer on stage. It was unexpected. It was ear-crunchingly loud. And I could tell you the exact point it made (realizing our true identity) months later. THAT’S a good illustration.
3) Create cheese accountability.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who know something’s cheesy, and those who don’t. The problem is cheesy people (of whom I am sometimes chief) rarely know they are cheesy. But your students do, guaranteed.
Which means this – bounce your illustrations off of people with good instincts who won’t worry about protecting your feelings. Maybe it’s a volunteer or a fellow staff member or core student in your ministry. Just don’t create illustrations in a vacuum. Because we all occasionally have bad ideas that we don’t know are bad.
4) Don’t be the hero of your own stories.
I recently was watching a phenomenal speaker who had great content, good delivery and a clear presentation. But there was one problem: it seemed like all his stories involved him being the smart/funny/right one. And it was a huge turn-off for me. Afterwards I heard people comment that they liked what he had to say, but that he seemed a little arrogant.
The point: be willing to be the goat, not the hero, in your stories. Whenever we’re willing to make fun of ourselves two things happen: 1) we give our students permission to struggle along with us and 2) we avoid appearing arrogant, which as we all know is the #1 way to make students tune out.
Now these four points are by no means the only thing to say, so I’d love to hear your personal learnings in the comment section below – call this an immediate application of point 3. But the most important thing is that we all continually improve in this area, because the better we are at intentionally illustrating, the clearer God’s voice becomes to our students.
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