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Every week, Preaching Today posts new illustrations - a mixture of stories, statistics, quotes, humor, and scenes from popular movies or TV shows. As a regular part of our PT Talk sessions, Brian Larson and I would like to take a moment to talk about how we might use some of our illustrations in a sermon. We decided to try this out on a classic: Master Violinist Goes Unrecognized. We felt it was the best illustration of 2007.

To hear us talk about specific and more abstract ways to use this illustration, click "Play" on the audio player below to listen to PT Talk via audio stream. If you'd rather download the audio file so you can have it on the run, there is a link just below the player.

To download this episode of PT Talk, click here.

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PreachingToday.com recently ran an illustration that was the unfortunate victim of embellishment. We've posted the corrected version for your records. These retractions don't happen often for us, but when they do, they often happen because of the very issue just mentioned: embellishment. For this episode of PT Talk, we discuss what happened, why it happened, and how to make sure it doesn't happen.

Click "Play" on the audio player below, and you can listen to PT Talk via an audio stream. If you'd rather download the audio file so you can have it on the run, there is a link just below the player.

To download this episode of PT Talk, click here.

PreachingToday.com is currently running "Stolen Goods: Tempted to Plagiarize", an article by Thomas G. Long about the necessity of citation and the damage of deceit in preaching. The editors of Preaching Today wanted to use our new weekly audio feature - PT Talk - to chime in with a few thoughts on this controversial topic. Please use the comments section to share your own reflections.

Click "Play" on the audio player below, and you can listen to PT Talk via an audio stream. If you'd rather download the audio file so you can have it on the run, there is a link just below the player.

To download this episode of PT Talk, click here.

PreachingToday.com is currently running "Stolen Goods: Tempted to Plagiarize", an article by Thomas G. Long about the necessity of citation and the damage of deceit in preaching. If you're a member of Preaching Today, you can read it at any time by clicking on the link. Brian Larson (chief editor) and I will be discussing the article and its implications in the next episode of PT Talk (to be posted very soon). In the meantime, here are a few juicy quotes from Long's work:

Scot McKnight recently reviewed Anthony Thiselton's The Hermeneutics of Doctrine for the folks at Christianity Today. McKnight offers this synopsis of Thiselton's thoughts on doctrine and belief:

Here's what people are watching, reading, listening to, and learning about...

Top Five Movies (according to box office returns)
1. Horton Hears a Who (Rated G)
2. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (Rated PG-13)
3. Shutter (Rated PG-13)
4. Drillbit Taylor (Rated PG-13)
5. 10,000 B.C. (Rated R)

PreachingToday.com has posted part three of a three-part article on dialogical preaching. In part three, Bob Hyatt, paints a picture of what a dialogical approach to the sermon event looks like at The Evergreen Community and offers a few ideas for any who would like to introduce dialogue into their preaching

PreachingToday.com has posted part two of a three-part article on dialogical preaching. In part two, Bob Hyatt addresses some of the concerns people have with dialogical preaching. In part three—to be posted next Monday, March 24—Hyatt will paint a picture of what a dialogical approach to the sermon event looks like at The Evergreen Community and offers a few ideas for any who would like to introduce dialogue into their preaching

PreachingToday.com has posted part one of a three-part article on dialogical preaching. For the first quarter of 2008, Preaching Today has focused on the idea of group sermon preparation. More and more preachers are putting together their messages in community, allowing for insightful, idea-producing dialogue with others. For more about this process, check out our interview with Dave Ferguson on "Group Sermon Preparation" (part one and part two) and an observational piece entitled "Loosening My Grip." For the final stretch of our quarter's theme, we decided to add a twist to the concept: What happens when a preacher engages in a similar type of dialogue—but during the Sunday sermon itself?

Our sister site, Out of Ur, recently initiated a conversation about the potential dangers of pursuing excellence in ministry. The conversation is built upon an article that was written by Daniel Schantz for Christian Standard magazine. You can find the full article by Schantz here.

The conversation on Ur mostly focuses on big picture issues (i.e. excellence in overall programming). I'd like to hear from you all about something specific: excellence in preaching. What do you perceive are the dangers in pursuing excellence in preaching?

I recently heard the most powerful sermon I've heard in a long time. In just a few minutes, the speaker filled an overly familiar phrase—Merry Christmas—with profound meaning and left me awestruck by the Word of God.

My refuge from the musical monotony of the Christmas season has been Sufjan Stevens' five-disc set, Songs for Christmas. I wanted to buy it when it came out last year because I think Sufjan is one of the more exciting artists out there these days. But a certain lack of cash snowed on my parade. This year I finally got my hands on it, and I'm not sure what else to say except that which is cliché: I can't stop listening to it.

Here's one of the ten illustrations we have to offer this week to members of PreachingToday. After you've taken a moment to read it, please brainstorm with us in the comments section. How would you use this story in a sermon?

Philosopher J. P. Moreland's Healing

The Sunday evening service on February 20, 2005, had just ended and I wanted to get home. I was frustrated. …The previous Thursday a virus landed in my chest and throat, and in a period of less than three hours I went from being normal to having the worst case of laryngitis in the thirty-five years since college. On Friday I went to our walk-in clinic and received the bad news. The doctor warned that this virus was going around, she had seen several cases of it in the last few weeks, and there was nothing that could be done about it. I just had to wait it out. The laryngitis would last seven to ten days.

Here's one of the ten illustrations we have to offer this week to members of PreachingToday. After you've taken a moment to read it, please brainstorm with us in the comments section. How would you use this story in a sermon?

Bad Relationships Are Bad for Your Health

Researchers from the University of Utah found there's a price to pay when couples don't get along. Videotapes recorded 150 husbands and wives discussing sensitive issues (how money is managed or doing household chores) and found the following:

Women who buried anger rather than speaking out were more likely to succumb to heart disease than wives who were vocal, the study found. And when women became domineering and controlling, rather than seeking consensus, damage was done to husbands' coronary health.

Take a look at this article from copyblogger.com. The idea of confident feet is obviously couched in terms of blogging in this particular article, but I'm curious about your thoughts on the importance and necessity of confident feet in preaching. The author of the article writes:

What I would like to talk about is healthy motion. Like many things, motion when speaking in front of people is a case of balancing extremes. No motion is boring, and too much movement gives off a nervous vibe. Check out this quote from Lin Sexton in a recent column for Worship Leader Magazine:

Hopefully you've been able to check out the Preaching Today interview with Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken on preaching for spiritual formation. Mark your calendars: the second part comes out this Friday. In the meantime here's something from the cutting room floor...

How did the topic of spiritual formation in preaching become important to you?

Kent: Our interest in preaching for spiritual formation is directly related to the story of our church. We were a seeker-targeted church that had experienced rather rapid growth in our area. We were having great fun and, in terms of attendance and decisions for Christ, were experiencing great success. By 2000, we were finally in our first permanent, large building, so we no longer had facility demands. This gave us flexibility to evaluate where we were and listen more carefully to what God was saying.

Clark Cothern, a regular contributor to our weekly batch of illustrations, shared this short, but intriguing story. Take a moment to read it, and I'd like to offer just a few words on the other side:

Would you consider yourself successful if you had written a novel a year for 52 straight years? Would you feel successful if you had written shelves of books on mythology, biography, folklore, theology, and travel? One man did all of the above—and in only one lifetime. I kid you not! This one man wrote 85 books in his 89 years on Earth. And get this: the same man even once rescued a young girl from drowning!

But I doubt seriously that you know his name.

FaithVisuals has just posted a provocative interview with Shane Hipps (author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church). The conversation is guided by this centering question: "Is video technology in church manipulative?" At the midway point, Hipps – who has a history in the world of marketing and advertising – makes this observation about the use of media:

Visual multimedia are probably the favorite medium of the greatest manipulators in world history: advertisers. And I know because I was one! One of the things we discovered was that the absolute best way to move people against their better judgment was through emotion, not reason. Everything we did was to try and give emotional experiences, evoke emotional impressions, and basically ignore the nuts and bolts of the superiority of our product.

In our two-part interview with Wayne Shaw, "The Dire Need for Doctrine" (Part 1 and Part 2), Shaw shared his concern over today's preaching being void of doctrine. Near the end of part one, Shaw offered this interesting insight:

If we're going to form a Christian community into what the Bible calls the church, we're going to have to deal with the major tenets biblically—what we're to believe and what we're to do. In other words, "What marks us as Christians? What marks us as a community of faith?" If we don't know that faith, then we're just joining another organization. That's how serious it is to me.