Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks: 100 Attention-Getting Stories, Parables, and Anecdotes

Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks: 100 Attention-Getting Stories, Parables, and Anecdotes

by Wayne Rice
Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks: 100 Attention-Getting Stories, Parables, and Anecdotes

Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks: 100 Attention-Getting Stories, Parables, and Anecdotes

by Wayne Rice

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Overview

Your search for lively illustrations to spice up your youth talks is over. Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks is here! Veteran youth worker and nationally known speaker Wayne Rice has carefully selected and crafted 100 of the best stories, parables, and anecdotes available anywhere. Rice has collected these illustrations form his own files and from files of some of youth ministry's best speakers -- Mike Yaconelli -- Tony Campolo -- Dewey Bertolini -- Chap Clark -- Les Christie -- Ray Johnston -- Len Kageler -- Rick Bundschuh --- and many more! These stories (all indexed by topic) cover a lot of youth ministry ground -- some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, and all of them will make you think. And they all work with teenagers. They're just the thing to give your youth talks that extra spark you're looking for. You'll love what Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks will do for your youth talks. And your kids will love you for it!

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780310872689
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication date: 05/04/2010
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishing
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 3 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Wayne Rice is founder and director of Understanding Your Teenager (UYT), an organization serving parents of teens and pre-teens. He is adjunct professor of youth ministry at Bethel Theological Seminary (San Diego) and at North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls. He lives with his wife in Lakeside, CA.

Read an Excerpt

Nathan the prophet was the guest speaker. King David was the audience.
Nathan had a message from the Lord to deliver to David, and, being theexcellent communicator that he was, he opened with a story:
There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him (II Samuel 12:1-4).
The story, of course, had King David on the edge of his seat. He took it seriously and responded with gut-wrenching emotion: 'As surely as the Lord lives, the rich scoundrel who took that little lamb deserves to die!' Bingo. The rest of Nathan's message required few words. All he had to do was apply the story to his audience: 'You, sir, are that man.'
Nathan knew what every good speaker and teacher knows: a picture is worth a thousand words. A captivating illustration that is thoughtfully chosen and skillfully used communicates more, is remembered longer, and has greater impact than thousands of words that may be truthful and important, but which are abstract and tell no story.
Jesus knew the value of a story, too. He spoke in parables. In fact, Matthew 13:34 records that Jesus never spoke without using a parable. He consistently sprinkled His talks with stories and illustrations to drive home the point He was making. He drew His illustrations from everyday life in the Middle East, describing farmers and families, sheep and goats, barns and wheat fields. People were amazed at His teaching.
Unfortunately, amazing is not often the word that teens use to describe speakers and teachers in the church today. The word boring seems to be more in fashion. A few popular speakers, however, know how to communicate well with kids, and invariably they use stories and illustrations effectively in their talks.
Hot Illustrations is a selection of stories that have been used effectively in youth talks by several of those popular speakers. I have used many of them myself. All of them can work with kids if the stories are chosen properly and communicated with conviction and purpose.
This is not an exhaustive collection of illustrations for youth talks. The books that claim to be exhaustive are often so large that they are difficult to use. One book on my shelf boasts nearly eight thousand illustrations in it. But to be honest, it's difficult to find one good illustration in that book when I need it. My goal for this book has been to offer you quality rather than quantity.
Selecting and using illustrations is a subjective and personal task; what works for you may not work for me (and vice versa). Even so, this book offers you a sampling of illustrations that I recommend without reservation. Much of that has to do with the quality of people who contributed to this book. (Their names are listed on pages 7 and 8). Good illustrations are extremely valuable and hard to come by. Many speakers prefer keeping them to themselves. That's why I'm grateful for these contributors who were willing to share some of their best illustrations with us.
AIM TO HIT YOUR TARGET
The most important thing to remember as you use the illustrations in this book is that they are only illustrations. They are not the points to be made. In other words, don't build your talk around these or any other illustrations. Begin with the point (the truth) that you want to communicate, and then find or create the illustration that supports that point.
A young boy received a bow and arrow from his father and immediately went outside to shoot it. A few minutes later, his father went outside and saw that the boy had shot his arrows at several targets that had been drawn on the side of a fence. To his amazement, each arrow had hit a bull's-eye. The father was impressed and said to his son, 'I didn't realize you were such a good shot!' The boy replied, 'Oh, it was easy. I shot the arrows first; then drew the targets around them.'
When you use illustrations simply because they are good illustrations, you are drawing targets around your arrows. Begin planning a talk by deciding what the point (the target) is. Enhance the talk with an illustration only if it effectively drives home that point. Keep in mind that it takes different kinds of arrows to hit different kinds of targets. In the same way, be selective in filling your quiver with illustrations.
With each illustration in this book, I have suggested one or two points that can be supported by the illustration. Every illustration has multiple applications. A list of general topics that will help you to select illustrations more easily can be found in this text.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS CONTRIBUTORS INTRODUCTION HOW TO CHOOSE AND USE ILLUSTRATIONS HOT ILLUSTRATIONS Alexander the Great An Answer to Prayer Awesome Obedience The Battleship and the Lighthouse The Bear in the Cave Beauty and the Beast The Bee Sting Beware of Curare Big Adventures The Big Rock The Blind Date The Blind Men and the Elephant The Blood of an Overcomer The Boat in the Window Bonny’s Bunny Born to Fly The Bottle Bought to Be Freed The Boy and the Circus Brandon’s Mess Caught in a Blizzard The Chicken and the Pig Choosing Mary The Circus Clown The Cliff The Coffin Coming Home Computer Grace The Cookie Snatcher Deadly Marbles The Diamond Merchant The Emperor Moth Eskimo Wolf Hunters Excuses, Excuses Face the Music Finish the Race The Flying V The Flying Wallendas Footprints in the Sand France, 1943 Getting the Word Out The Glove The Greatest Hitter in the World The Greyhound Races The Grocery Store Clerk Hannibal’s Fire The Hermit’s Gift The Hopeless Baseball Game How to Catch a Monkey The Insurance Claim Jesus and the Football Team The Jewelry Store Caper The Jigsaw Puzzle The Job Applicant The Kebbitch Itch The Kiss “Lambing” in New Zealand Laying Bricks or Building Cathedrals The Lifeboat The Lifesaving Station The Little Girl and the Piano The Long Jump Lost Dog---$50 Reward Love, Julie The Mirror A Night in the Haunted House Not Much of a Man The Oil Refinery Out at Home Plate The Painting of the Last Supper Pepe Rodriguez The Prince of Grenada The Queen of England Real Friends The Reverse Thread Right Decisions Rudolph and Olive The Secret Sharpen Your Ax The Smartest Teenager in the World The Society Woman Sparky, the Loser The Suicide Attempt Teddy and Miss Thompson Telemachus Goes to Rome Thermometers and Thermostats Thomas Edison, the Failure The Three Spinners The Tightrope and the Wheelbarrow Too Many Engineers The Tractor Pull The Turtle Picnic Uncompromising Determination The W.C. We’ll Get Back to You What Life? When Do I Die? The Window Wrong Way Riegel You, Too, Can Be Beautiful We want your Hot Illustration! Index to Topics
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