5 Places to Find Great Illustrations (Part 2)

Hopefully, if you were not using Evernote to save, store, and file your illustrations, you are now (see the first installment in this series).

Continuing our list of five places to find great illustrations:

2. Media (News, television shows, movies, the Internet)

I combined all of these areas under one umbrella because each of them is readily available via technology. Here's a breakdown of the benefits of each:

NEWS - You can discover up-to-date, real life stories of successes, failures, wins, and losses in life. There are also numerous quotations available from current famous people and the average Joe.

TV SHOWS - Looking for a funny or heart-pounding clip to illustrate a point or open your talk? Look no further. With the advent of the Internet, you can grab almost any scene from any TV show. I have used Seinfeld, Heroes, Lost, and even the Simpsons... Just to name a few.

MOVIES - Similar to the television show illustration, you can illustrate almost any principle and it connects very well with students. A 5-7 minute scene can be very useful in opening your message. it grabs the listeners' attention, draws them in, then leaves them asking themselves, "How are they going to connect this to their message???" Finally, most epic movies are written in the "Hero's Journey" story model which lends itself to great storytelling. Trust me.... Google it. Star Wars anyone?

INTERNET - Quotes, stories, illustrations, scale models, graphics, videos... You get the point. It's all available at your fingertips.

Regardless of which of these forms of media you use to find great illustrations, be sure to save them, store them and file them with whichever method you prefer. The important part is remembering to save them as you come across them. It only takes an extra ten to fifteen seconds or so to copy, paste, and tag an illustration for use.

Read Part 3 here.

5 Places to Find Great Illustrations (Part 1)

Eighteen years ago I heard a guest lecturer in one of my ministry classes share one of the most helpful tips for preaching, speaking, and communicating that I have ever heard. That lecturer was Dave Stone (who is now the Senior Minister at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY). The tip...

KEEP AN ILLUSTRATION FILE.

To be honest, I have my good days and bad days when it comes to collecting and saving illustrations. There are times when I find and save at least one illustration per day; then, there are other times when I will go weeks and not intentionally collect any illustrations whatsoever.

Today happens to be a good day.

Before I begin sharing the 5 places, if you have not done so already, you need to come up with a system to collect, save, and subsequently file all of your stories, illustrations, quotes, news clippings, etc. It used to be we would use file folders, a filing bin, or filing drawers; however, now we have the luxury of technology (cue trumpet fanfare)...

It's called Evernote. Evernote is the youth communicator's best friend. If you haven't begun using it to collect, store, and organize your illustrations, you may want to strongly consider it.

Here are 5 places to find GREAT illustrations:

1.  Your own life.

YOU have more illustrations and stories than you can count... Trust me. The key is to write them down and store them somewhere that you can easily access them (ahem... Evernote). Stories about growing up. Stories about victories you have had. Stories about failures and mistakes that you have made. Illustrations about how fixing your car is like... Well, you get the point. If you can spare 30 minutes of thinking time per week to just think about your own life's stories and illustrations, you will be miles ahead of most everyone else.


Read Part 2 here...

3 tips from the pros for speaking to youth

While recently coaching an up-and-coming youth communicator, I was reminded of three simple tips that professional youth speakers use when crafting and rehearsing their messages:

1. The 7-7-7 rule...
Students today have been accustomed to media that is divided into seven-minute chunks that are separated by two to three minutes of commercials each. As youth speakers, it is wise to build our messages in a similar fashion; seven minutes of contents separated by little "commercial breaks" in which we build in an audience interaction, a humorous story, or something else that breaks up the monotony of listening to someone addressing the group for 30 minutes.

2. Story is key.
We must not only incorporate the telling a story in our talk, but we must strive to ensure that our overall message works as a story (beginning, middle, end). More importantly, we must continually ask ourselves, "What is the story that God is desiring to tell through this message?" Jesus taught through stories and parables, so should we!

3. Rehearse it until you own it.
Rehearsing and practicing our messages sometimes feels silly. We can easily be tempted into thinking that we will just depend on our natural ability to be spontaneous or be "led by the Spirit" in the moment. However, the danger with this kind of thinking is that we don't end up "owning" our content and we come across as less-than-credible, not believable, or just look unprepared and lazy. It is more than worth every minute of preparation and practice when our delivery is as impactful as possible. Rehearse everything if you can... Blocking, gestures, telling your stories, reading scripture, facial expressions, etc. You, and especially the students listening to you, will not regret it.

The speaker I was coaching happens to be one of the college-aged interns in our student ministry. This was going to be the first time she had presented to our group as a whole. She knew she had something worthwhile to say and that the students needed to hear. Prior to speaking she was as nervous as could be, but she put these few tips into practice and did an amazing job!

People falling asleep when you speak? Read this...

Some practical thoughts from Angela DeFinis on reading your listener's cues. Click Here

In case you missed it...

In case you missed it, I recently had a guest blog post featured on Josh Griffin's (HS pastor at Saddleback) blog, More Than Dodgeball. Check it out here.

10 Steps to Preparing a Great Presentation

Some great, practical thoughts from Nancy Duarte on preparation. Click here

Three-Legged stool of speaking

Great content on the three-legged stool of speaking from Alex Rister.

1. Content

2.  Visual Presentation

3.  Delivery

Click HERE.