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Your Church, July/Aug 1998
Internet Sermon
Prep
Tap a reservoir of illustrations and applications
by James L. Wilson
Surfing the Internet may not give you the rush you get from catching a 15-foot wave, but it can give your ministry a lift.
Oceans of Information
The Internet places enormous amounts of information at your fingertips. It allows you to find illustrations for sermons or teaching from historical documents, books, and magazines.
It provides instant access to major newspapers, such as:
The following search engines will help you look through several sources at
the same time:
Pastors can brighten sermons with anecdotes and examples they find on the Internet. In a recent sermon in which I spoke of salvation as God's free gift, I used an illustration from an article in Worth magazine (http://www.worth.com/), which I found by asking a search engine to find sites related to the word sale. The editors of Worth had asked some of America's wealthiest people, "How much would you pay for eternal life?" According to the article, women would pay about $300,000. Men would put down a cool million.
[Note: In October 1999 Christianity Today released a online resource for sermon illustrations, quotes, statistics, and anecdotes. Check it out at: PreachingToday.com.]
Steve Long, an attorney and associate pastor at Sierra Vista Baptist Church in Belen, New Mexico, used a search engine last summer to find a sound clip of Franklin Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" speech that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Long used the recording in a sermon encouraging his church's senior citizens to keep active in Christian service. He reminded the seniors that they were the generation that accomplished the impossible in World War II and that their leadership was still needed today.
A Cup of Cold Water
John Coiner, Sunday school superintendent at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Mableton, Georgia, was so discouraged that he was ready to resign.
Coiner was surfing the Web one night and ran across 20/20 Vision (http://www.joshhunt.com), which offers tips on how to lead a Sunday school class. The site encouraged him to try a new approach to Sunday school, which has rekindled his excitement about his work.
The Hall of Church History
(http://www.gty.org/~phil/hall.htm) features writings from church fathers, medieval churchmen, heretics, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Reformers, Puritans, Anabaptists, Arminians, Baptists, and contemporary theologians. A friend of the site's curator jokingly refers to the source as "Theology from a Bunch of Dead Guys."
Robert Morgan, pastor at Donelson Fellowship in Nashville, Tennessee, accesses the Hall of Church History to read Spurgeon's sermons. He says the site offers the best collection of church history he's ever found.
Lighten the Load
If you're looking for religious humor to brighten your sermons, try Ecunet's Eculaugh (http://www.ecunet.org/ecunet/eculaugh/laugh.html). Here's a sample: "An usher heard a little girl explain church protocol to her brother. 'You have to be really quiet—if you talk, that man there will make you stop!'
"'He will?' he asked. 'Who is he?'
"She replied, 'He's the Husher!'"
A woman at my church asked if we could set up a computer lab for our children to use during Sunday school. We wrote a letter asking companies to donate old computers. A week later, we had 15 computers from Doctor Dan's computer store.
We downloaded free Bible games for the children from several Web sites. Serious Developments
(http://www.seriousd.com/freeware.htm) offered us the most games. We then added the Online Study Bible (ftp://www.gentle.org/Online_Bible/) to the computers and invited adults to use the computer lab. Our total expense for the lab was less than $100.
Electronic Ministry
Roger Williams, a youth pastor at Sequoia Heights Baptist Church in Manteca, California, goes online to search for ministry resources as well as to chat with young people. One of his online friends is a teenager with the usual problems. After chatting with the teen several times, Williams discovered that she wasn't a Christian. He asked her if she wanted to become one, then told her how to ask God to save her.
Williams saw the teen at a youth conference a few months later. Their face-to-face conversation confirmed the genuineness of her conversion.
Tap into the World
The Internet allows pastors to go global with their ministry.
For example, Gerald Steffey lives in Illinois, and Bill Phillips lives in Oregon. What both men have in common is that they both minister on the Web to a new Christian from Europe, whom they both met in a chat room. Phillips has mailed Christian growth material to the new believer. Both men have helped the woman with her struggles, doubts, and prayer needs.
Recently the woman told a friend, who has a Scientology background, about her cyberpastor friends. The man began writing to Steffey and Phillips and has begun asking many spiritual questions.
The Internet can link pastors with people all over the world. It can encourage them in their ministry. And it can give them some amazing opportunities to share their faith.
Though the Internet has some inherent dangers, it is also a powerful tool that can be used for God's glory.
Internet Resources
Bible Study Tools
Devotionals
Music Sites
Sermons
James L. Wilson is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church
of Alameda, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Copyright © 1998 by the author or Christianity Today International/Your
Church Magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail
yceditor@yourchurch.net.
July/August 1998, Vol.44, No. 4, Page 30
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