Your purpose in using references is not to impress, but to impact. Don't weigh down your presentation, but a sparing use of appropriate quotations, poems, and references to common cultural or current events can help turn on the lights for an audience.

Pictures

In addition to making your own presence as interesting as possible, give your listeners something visual to look at whenever it is appropriate. Make your sermon memorable with the use of bold, striking graphic aids, props, overheads, computer presentations, or other sensory enhancements.

Pastors, professors, and teachers are increasingly finding the benefit of using PowerPoint presentations as they speak. Coupled with a fill-in-theblank outline, sermon and lesson outlines flashed on a screen behind an active speaker are a powerful combination.

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For added impact, mix assorted kinds of media (for example, use projected outlines and video clips of appropriate testimonies) in order to keep the visual dimension varied and interesting. Rehearse the visual part of your presentation so transitions will be fluid rather than fumbling. Involve your listeners with your visuals; for example, ask questions of your audience and briefly tabulate their answers on an overhead transparency.

If you are teaching your church how to share their faith, for instance, write a script and rehearse a scenario with some willing church members. Anything you do to help your audience visually picture the truth you are teaching is a great help. When Jesus told his followers that they had to become like a child to enter heaven, he first took a little child in his lap. As they saw the simple adoration and obedience of that child, Jesus' words had a stronger impact on them because they were visual.

One word of warning is in order: do it with excellence! If you try to use any kind of visual aid or graphic presentation that fails — the person advancing the slides gets behind or ahead, the projector doesn't work — it will absolutely destroy your sermon. The rewards are great when it works, but the price of failure is huge. Don't use a technology until everyone involved with it has mastered it.

The content of our message is crucial, but we must follow Jesus' pattern to make sure that our content gets first to the heart. By using the SHARP principles to gain and maintain our listeners' interest, we can have greater impact and lasting effect — just like Jesus.

Hints for Great Illustrations

Illustrations should only be used when they truly help you reach the goal of your sermon. Whether it is to aid in explanation of a difficult concept, to provide a hook that will stay with them and help them apply the truth of the text, or to show them the urgency of accepting the truth of the text, your illustrations should have a purpose other than light filler between substantive points. If you want your supporting material to help you hit your target, we offer some guidelines that will help you create, find, and use the right kind of illustrations.