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353 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use
In 2015, when thousands of refugees huddled in the mud of the Calais "Jungle" camp in northern France, local churches organized prayer vigils. They sang...
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with Isaiah.
In 2018, a middle school teacher named Clara Johnson in south Chicago made a quiet decision that would cost her. She started arriving at school...
In the autumn of 1555, John Knox knelt by a window in Edinburgh, his forehead pressed against cold stone, and prayed words that those outside...
For three years, the women's Bible study at Redeemer Church in Tulsa fasted every Wednesday during Lent. They skipped lunch, gathered in the fellowship hall,...
In the heart of a bustling city, where concrete towers scrape the sky and the hum of traffic fills the air, a small community garden thrived against all odds. This garden, tended by families from diverse backgrounds, became a sanctuary...
In 2019, a journalism student named Darnella Frazier was walking her nine-year-old cousin to Cup Foods, a corner store in Minneapolis. She had no grand...
In the 1750s, a prosperous New Jersey shopkeeper named John Woolman closed his ledger book, stepped out from behind his counter, and began walking away...
On Christmas Day, 1909, a twenty-one-year-old Japanese seminary student named Toyohiko Kagawa moved into a six-foot-by-six-foot shack in the Shinkawa slums of Kobe. The neighborhood...
When Earl Thibodaux retired from thirty-two years of commercial construction in Baton Rouge, his wife expected him to finally sit still. Instead, Earl loaded his...
A dear friend of mine recently undertook the challenge of restoring an old, weathered violin. Its wood was cracked, its strings broken, and it looked like it had been abandoned for years in a dusty corner. Yet, my friend saw...
Every Tuesday night, Maria Santos unlocks the doors of Spin Cycle Laundromat on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis and puts up a hand-lettered sign: "Free Wash...
Marcus Webb had written his resignation letter three times. The small congregation in Huntsville had dwindled to thirty. The budget was nearly gone. His faith...
In 1825, Robert Owen, one of the wealthiest industrialists in Britain, purchased an entire town in southwestern Indiana. He renamed it New Harmony and poured...
There’s a small community garden in the heart of our city, tended by a group of retired folks who gather every Thursday. Each week, they arrive with their worn gardening gloves, a few tools, and a deep well of stories....
In 1909, a young Japanese seminary student named Toyohiko Kagawa did something his professors could not understand. He left his comfortable dormitory in Kobe and...
Father Gregory Boyle didn't march into East Los Angeles with a megaphone. He opened a bakery. For over thirty years now, Homeboy Industries has quietly...
For three years, the cracked sidewalk on Maplewood Drive forced elderly residents to walk in the street. The city had bigger priorities. First Baptist Church...
In 1843, a woman named Isabella Baumfree walked out of New York City with nothing but a pillowcase of belongings and a fierce conviction that...
Every Friday, Maria Sandoval packed two lunches — one for herself and one she quietly slipped into the backpack of a boy in her third-grade...
In 1909, a twenty-one-year-old Japanese seminary student named Toyohiko Kagawa walked out of his comfortable dormitory in Kobe and moved into a six-foot-by-six-foot shack in...
In 1978, Coach Wayne Gordon moved into North Lawndale on Chicago's West Side — not to commute in for weekend charity, but to stay. The...
For three years, the members of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Memphis held a Wednesday night fast. They gathered in their sanctuary, sang worship songs...
Every Friday morning at Haley House Bakery Cafe in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, something quietly radical happens. Volunteers who spent the previous evening in prayer groups...
There’s a small café in my neighborhood, a cozy spot where the scent of freshly brewed coffee fills the air. I often see a man named Samuel, a retired teacher, sitting by the window. Despite his age, he carries a...