While travelling to Danané, a small town 627 kilometers (389 miles) west of Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire, you may visit the bustling town of Man. Man is a little gem situated in an area of natural beauty surrounded by mountains, forests, and rivers. Mont Tonkoui (1,189 m) is one of Côte d’Ivoire’s tallest mountains with some exquisite waterfalls, and is very popular with tourists. Although not on the top of everyone’s list of places to go, those tourists who know come to hike and explore this region. Possibly this is the first time you have heard of Man, and now you wish to learn more.
KEEP THE CONGREGATION INTERESTED
This illustrates the point that in order to keep the congregation interested, you must make your sermons interesting. The benefits are threefold: (1) You will enjoy preaching the sermon. (2) The listeners will enjoy what you have to say. (3) It glorifies God. You don’t want to have Paul’s experience in Troas as you preach. “And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead” (Acts 20:9).1 It must have been either a really bad or really long sermon for that to happen. If your sermon is boring, the listeners may fall asleep—although they likely won’t fall out of a window!
Prior to going into pastoral ministry, I talked with the dean of the seminary at Andrews University to ask his advice on preaching. The dean’s advice was to put plenty of windows in your sermon. What was the dean suggesting? What is the purpose of a window? The answer is that they let light shine through them to light up a room. When constructing a sermon, put plenty of windows in it.
COMMUNICATE IN PICTURES
We communicate, and even dream, in pictures. Jacob dreamed of a ladder going up to heaven. “Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!” (Gen 28:11–12).
Similarly, Joseph had a dream that got him in a bit of trouble with his brothers. “Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, . . . ‘Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf’” (Gen 37:5–7). Life for Joseph got much worse. In Genesis 40, Joseph was in prison; however, this time, Joseph was able to interpret the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker to the king. Both would be released—the cupbearer to serve the pharaoh and the baker to be hung.
Possibly one of the most profound dreams God gave humankind was given to King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2. This dream gave Nebuchadnezzar a summary of what would happen in the future, showing the empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, and lastly, the feet of iron and clay that were struck by the rock. Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar, “A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure” (Dan 2:45). Through one simple statue of various metals, God gave Nebuchadnezzar an overview of the world’s future history.
That’s the power of pictures to communicate a spiritual truth. All five dreams had different stories; all their dreams were in pictures rather than words. Why? We communicate through pictures. When used correctly, words create mental images that we can relate to. What does the word Calvary bring to mind? I would guess it is a picture of Jesus dying on the cross. That is a powerful image, demonstrating the power of pictures.
USING PICTURES TO COMMUNICATE THE ABSTRACT
Windows in a sermon are picture stories that connect with the listener. In elementary school, to help children learn numbers we use a technique called CPA 1 (concrete, pictorial, and abstract).2 First, we introduce children to concrete examples using four wooden blocks to count with. When they have learned to count with the blocks, they learn to count with pictures of four squares, circles, or triangles. Finally, the children are taught to count using numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.
This is not new; Jesus used the same method to teach spiritual truths. In Jesus’ lesson on worrying, Jesus used concrete pictures—lilies from the field. We read, “And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matt 6:28–30). The message is simple, yet so profound. Using a flower to instill faith in the heart of the hearer, Jesus used a concrete example to communicate an abstract message. Jesus went from concrete to abstract to explain the need to trust God daily.
Practically all of what is taught within the church is abstract. Think of the concepts of justification and sanctification; can you touch or see them? No. Yet these are important truths that need to be proclaimed. So how do we make abstract truths relevant for today’s listener? We tell stories that the listener can relate to. A listener in Bangkok, Thailand, obviously has a different context than a listener in Zurich, Switzerland, or a listener in Los Angeles, USA. But the overarching principle is the same: put pictures in your sermon that people can relate to.
God has used His servants down through time to communicate vivid images, writing down what they saw: Daniel in the Old Testament and his scary beasts, John in the New Testament and pictures of heavenly worship, and Ellen G. White’s prophetic visions. Pictures are powerful. Therefore, place them strategically throughout your sermon. The listener will remember your message when you do.
KEEP YOUR MESSAGE POSITIVE AND ENCOURAGING
Paul’s situation was dire when he wrote these words in Philippians: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8). He was a guest of the Roman Empire. He wasn’t enjoying the luxuries of the Marriott Grand Hotel Flora Rome; he was in a stinky prison cell. Yet Philippians is called the epistle of joy, even though Paul’s own circumstances were far from joyous.
People respond much better to encouragement, and as a preacher, it is important to bring the good news to the listener on Sabbath. The most important aspect of the sermon is to bring an alternative to the doom and gloom that pervade this world. We get six days of media telling us humanity is about to fall off a cliff. Sabbath is a day of rest, a rest from the cares of the world and its constant worries. Isaiah explains this need to keep positive. Isaiah reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Isa 52:7). Preach the gospel, the good news.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) were two literary giants in Denmark. One had an upbringing of wealth and privilege, the other poverty and disadvantage, and with dramatically differing perspectives on life. Kierkegaard sought to be the corrective in Christendom, spending all his life complaining about all the wrongs in the church of his day which needed correcting, while Andersen chose to inspire through his writings. Two storytellers with two different outcomes: one died lonely and miserable, while the other died happy, leaving a legacy of happiness to children with stories such as The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, The Nightingale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and The Tinderbox. Two great Danes, two different stories, with two different endings. I know which one I prefer—the one where they all lived happily ever after. Keep your sermons interesting and positive.
1 All Scripture references are from the ESV.
2 “What IS CPA Maths?,” Twinkl, accessed August 27, 2025, https://www.twinkl.com/ teaching-wiki/cpa-maths
Malcolm Perry, DMin, is a retired pastor and teacher, residing in Crieff, Scotland.
