ILLUSTRATIONS: HOW TO KEEP THE GOOD ONES FROM GETTING AWAY
Garry Gonzales
April 1, 1992
I visited San Francisco for the first time in July 1978. Eager to see the sites-Fisherman's Wharf, Nob Hill, and Lombard Street-I took a three-and-a-half hour minibus tour.
At Coit Tower the tour guide described the great quake and fire that reduced San Francisco to rubble on April 18, 1906. According to her, "It had been another dry year. When the quake hit at 5:03 A.M., it not only leveled many of the old city's reinforced buildings, it also ruptured underground water sins. This enabled the raging fire to burn virtually unchecked."
'Since then," she said, "the city has worked diligently to build strategic water reservoirs throughout the Bay area should another catastrophic quake
Preachers, too, need strategic reservoirs for emergencies. Few things panic speakers more than facing dry sermon on Saturday night, with nothing coming out of the homiletic spigot.
Yet how does one go about building these reserves? Finding answers to that question has been a lifelong interest of mine. As a preacher and adjunct professor of preaching, I've searched for down-to-earth ways to help both budding and experienced reachers dig cisterns for holding illustrations for night emergencies.
Stories and anecdotes
I've found one key is a system for filing illustrations.
By accident I discovered the simple, expandable, and inexpensive system described in Dan Baumann's book, An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching, and over the years I've modified it.
To start, I would gather some letter-size file folders, a packet of four-by-six index cards, a three-ring notebook, lined three-hole punched paper, and a set of 26 dividers for alphabetic thumb tabs.
Let's say the first illustration I decide to save deals with the topic of theology. I take a file folder and ...
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