#640. “Ripped from the headlines” sermon illustrations.
I don’t want to lie, if I was a pastor I would have used the balloon boy incident in my sermon yesterday. (If you missed it, a few days ago folks were gripped for hours by watching a homemade weather balloon float 7,000 feet in the air because we all thought there was a 6-year old boy named Falcon accidentally inside. Turns out he was at home in the attic the whole time and never in danger.) Given the pressure of coming up with a new sermon weekend after weekend after weekend, I would have totally ridden that kid’s helium coattails to fantastical sermon illustration awesomeness.
And I don’t think I’m the only one who sees national news events as potential sermon fodder. From the sermon success of Michael Phelps during the Olympics to recent celebrity deaths, it’s tempting to create a sermon illustration that is “ripped from the headlines.” If your pastor does, I hope they will use one of the three following techniques …
1. Make a wide sweeping comment about culture and society.
Start off with the phrase, “What does it say about our culture when, …” and then just add the news event. For example, “What does it say about our culture when in the midst of a million other more serious issues, we are all glued to the television in an overreaction to a balloon-related event that ended up being nothing at all?” If you’re a math guy you could possibly add up the cost of a multi-state rescue effort and how many real emergencies went ignored during “balloongate.” Or, since the kid’s parents were on the show “Wife Swap,” you could also talk about the dangers of a fame hungry, reality television addicted society. I don’t know the parents at all, but you could point a finger at people like me for watching the balloon chase on TV. I gotta tell ya, if you’re a pastor, that balloon thing was really a cornucopia of an event.
2. Tie the event to the Old Testament
If possible, try to tie your news event to something that happened in the Old Testament. Think of it as a way to bridge old and new, past and present, King James and LeBron James. For the balloon incident? A lot of pastors probably would have related it to that time Jonathan had to float in a helium balloon and signal to David that Saul was unhappy with him, but not me. I would have taken the easy route and gone right to the Isaiah 40:31 mount up wings like eagles verse. And the worship team would have played, Sugar Ray’s song, “Fly Away.” No, scrap that. We would have just hired the band Sugar Ray. We could probably get them at this point. I’m pretty sure they’re available.
3. Relate the incident to everyone in the crowd.
I said it before on Twitter and I’ll say it again, “If your parents name you ‘Falcon,’ balloon adventures, grizzly bear shenanigans & sword hijinks should be expected/forgiven.” Since Falcon was discovered hiding in an attic, instead of flying across the sky in a silvery balloon, some people got mad at him. Forget that, instead talk about the challenges we all face as parents. Granted, it’s going to be difficult to directly make this relatable on a large scale level. I would suggest you don’t say, “We all know what it’s like to be a parent. You’re doing your best and trying to raise up your children when suddenly one of them un-tethers your experimental helium weather balloon/alien chaser vehicle and floats into the collective hearts and minds of millions of television viewers. Who hasn’t been there before?” That sentence is going to bomb. But if you say, “Who here has a perfect kid who never makes a mistake? Who here hasn’t made a mistake themselves?” Suddenly you’ve made the escapades of Falcon very relatable.
Maybe your pastor didn’t drop a reference to the balloon boy yesterday. Maybe he had his sermon on lockdown weeks ago and didn’t do the “God gave me this message on the way here this morning” thing. But if he did go the balloon route, I hope he used one of those three techniques. They’re free. You can have them. They should probably be taught in seminary or something.
What’s the funniest/best “ripped from the headlines” sermon illustration you’ve ever experienced during a sermon?
