I don’t remember where I picked up this little tip. I have read books and attended workshops on effective preaching. At this point in my life many of my friends are pastors and preachers but as a younger man I gave some time and attention to improving my craft. One piece of advice that would benefit any public speaker, it doesn’t have to be in the pulpit, is about effective illustrations. If you are going to use wiring in a light switch to make a point, make sure you know what you are talking about. There is probably at least one person in your audience, perhaps a professional electrician, that will know if your illustration is made poorly. If you are going to compare your topic to changing the oil in a car, planting a garden, sewing on a button, programming HTML or whatever might be helpful, make sure you are well informed if not an expert on the subject you use as a reference. Don’t assume no one will know the difference; someone will know if you say something wrong and then you will lose credibility. If they see you as poorly informed about building a bookcase, they may also lose confidence in your knowledge of the Bible (or whatever field you may be speaking to if it’s not the Bible). If you provide sloppy illustrations with erroneous information maybe you’re sloppy with your Bible study or lazy in sermon prep. As public speaking goes, teaching the Bible or preaching the Gospel needs to be done well.

I have been preaching through Paul’s letter to the Philippians. We will be finishing chapter 3 Sunday morning, dealing with a very familiar passage about pressing toward the goal of Christ’s high calling. Paul talks about forgetting what is behind and pressing toward what lies ahead. I finished my outline notes and was thinking about possible introductions and illustrations I could use. The cars used in NASCAR are built for a highly specific purpose. They are no longer modified from street legal cars available to the public like they once were. I’ve never seen one back up but granted I don’t watch a lot of (hardly any) NASCAR events. They are made to go forward extremely fast but there is no need to back one up so why even built that into the gearbox? I thought about using NASCAR as an example of always moving forward, never backwards. But before I committed to that thought perhaps I had better check.

Contrary to popular belief every NASCAR race car has reverse. They sometimes have to maneuver around the track or at their home base of operations. If I had just jumped in with both feet I might have been corrected and/or had to come back next week and retract my statement. I am preaching from Philippians 3:12-21 on Sunday morning but I can’t tell you right now what my introduction will be; it will not be NASCAR, unless I share the story of how I almost messed up.