Use only illustrations that relate to your text. Preachers sometimes settle for a good story instead of a relevant story. If you just heard a great sermon on tape or at a conference, resist the temptation to put that great illustration into your next sermon just because it is a good story. And let's be honest: it is easy to come up with some convoluted logic that appears to tie it in, even when you know it just doesn't fit. Don't do it! File and save that illustration for a time when it will be appropriate to the text. If you don't, the chances are good that you will confuse your audience.

Use illustrations relevant to your culture. My wife Tanya is a great communicator and speaker, frequently traveling to share in women's conferences and retreats. She used to have a presentation on the stages of a woman's life as illustrated by her purse and its contents. She used this creative and entertaining speech to help women enjoy the stages of life and rejoice in what God was doing right then in their lives. She would begin with a little girl's purse, stuffed with hair berets, doll paraphernalia, and crackers. Continuing to speak, she would unveil the purse of a teenager, a newlywed, a young mother, a career woman, and a grandmother. She would delight audiences as she pulled items out of the purse that characterized the different seasons of a woman's life.

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Once she was invited by a missionary friend to come to eastern Kentucky, the most rural part of the state, and speak to a group of women. She took her boxes of purses and made the drive from our city to the mountains to address these ladies and, she hoped, to bless them. When she got back late that night, I was waiting up for her and asked how things went. "Terrible," she replied with a dejected look. "They never laughed, cracked a smile, or even nodded with the slightest hint of enjoyment. It was just awful."

"What happened? That talk always works!" I responded.

"They don't carry purses!" she explained.

That is what happens when we use an illustration in a culture that has nothing in common with the premise of the illustration. When I go to the Amazon region of Brazil, I may preach the same sermon, but I do not use the same illustrations or tell the same stories. A lady living on a floating house in the Amazon does not have the same kinds of issues or experiences as a woman living in a Manhattan apartment. Though they may have the same core needs, the point of entry to those needs may be miles apart. Illustrations have to take culture into account.

You may be thinking that this is obvious, but the illustrations about Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Fanny Crosby that are so common indicate otherwise. Rick Warren calls these "dead Englishman illustrations," and you just can't use many of them. You run the risk of speaking about purses to people who don't carry purses. You might get away with using one on occasion — if it is well told — but most people today just don't see that Napoleon's exile on Elba is like our alienation from God. The best illustrations are the ones that get a nod of recognition.