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428 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use
In 1569, Dutch Anabaptist Dirk Willems was fleeing authorities who would execute him for his faith. He crossed a frozen pond; the ice held his slight frame. His pursuer, heavier, broke through and began drowning. Willems turned back and saved the man's life.
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Early Anabaptists were hunted across Europe. Wherever they fled, they shared their faith. Persecution became mission; scattering became sending. They called it "missionary through martyrdom"—the blood of the witnesses planted churches. They had no mission agencies, no training programs, no budgets.
John Stott, the influential Anglican leader, spoke of mission requiring "double listening"—listening to the Word AND listening to the world. The Great Commission sends us to "all nations," which means understanding those nations. "Teaching them to observe all I have...
In 2018, a journalism student named Marcus Rivera sat in a packed auditorium at Columbia University, listening to a panel of historians debate the legacy...
In 1989, a woman named Margaret Chen ran a free tutoring center out of her garage in East Oakland, California. Every weekday after school, eight...
The Great Commission ends not with a task but with a presence: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." This isn't Jesus sending us away; it's Jesus going WITH us.
A Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany secretly baptized Jewish children to save them from the Holocaust, giving them Christian identities that protected them. Was it right? The questions are complex, but notice: he saw baptism as powerful, real, consequential.
A journalist once watched Mother Teresa tend to a dying man covered in maggots and filth. "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars," he said. She replied, "Neither would I." The journalist was confused until she explained: "I do...
On April 8, 2024, Sarah Gonzalez drove eleven hours from Atlanta to a small field outside Dallas, Texas, just to stand in the path of...
On the evening of November 9, 1989, Angelika Weiss stood in a crowd of East Berliners pressing toward the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint. For twenty-eight years,...
In 1935, Dietrich Bonhoeffer opened an illegal seminary in Finkenwalde, a small town on the Baltic coast of Germany. The Reich church had already capitulated,...
In the spring of 1943, a young mother named Clara Simmons stood outside the offices of the War Department in Washington, D.C. Her husband had...
In 1836, George Müller of Bristol, England, began praying for the conversion of five personal friends. He prayed daily, by name, with quiet certainty that...
When NASA selected Mae Jemison for the crew of Space Shuttle *Endeavour* in 1992, she wasn't fearless. She'd grown up on the South Side of...
In just 10 years, Francis Xavier baptized an estimated 30,000 people across India, Southeast Asia, and Japan—often preaching through translators in languages he barely knew. He wore out his body, sleeping little, eating less, constantly moving.
When Desmond Doss enlisted in the United States Army in 1942, his commanding officers wanted him gone. A Seventh-day Adventist from Lynchburg, Virginia, Doss refused...
The Azusa Street Revival (1906-1915) started in a rundown building in Los Angeles. Within years, missionaries had gone from there to over 25 countries. They had almost no money, little education, but they had power.
Jesus said, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and THEN the end will come" (Matthew 24:14). The Great Commission has eschatological urgency—it's connected to Christ's return.
In 1844, George Müller began praying for five specific friends to come to faith in Christ. He prayed every day without exception — not vague,...
In 1817, Elizabeth Fry walked through the iron gates of Newgate Prison in London, a place so wretched that even the guards warned her not...
For twenty-three years, James Macon has opened the doors of his shop on 47th Street in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood at seven in the morning. He...
For eleven years, Maria Gutierrez left her porch light on at 4319 Garfield Avenue in Kansas City. Not because she forgot. Because she remembered. Her...
In 1836, George Müller opened an orphanage on Wilson Street in Bristol, England, with exactly one shilling in his pocket and no wealthy donors on...
In 2018, a Finnish documentary crew followed Heikki Nousiainen, a retired bus driver in Helsinki, as part of a study on contentment. Finland had just...