Creating Images Will Give Your Sermon Impact

Creating Images Will Give Your Sermon Impact

We are considering how the world of Advertising can give us tips that will create greater impact for our sermons.  The first of the posts in this series is here.  In this post we will look at one more thing we can learn from advertising.  Creating images will give your sermon impact is another thing that we can learn from advertising.

Creating Images Through Story Telling Will Give Your Sermon Impact

One of the truths you need to understand is that giving people information rarely leads to changes in behavior.  Here I think of my father.  He was a heavy smoker–three packs a day of Lucky Strike cigarettes.  He was a voracious reader, so he knew the statistics reported back in the 1960’s about the impact of smoking.

Percentages that included him did not foretell a good future for him if he continued to smoke.  However, none of that caused him to face his addiction.  What did it?  His doctor told him what was going to happen to him with his health conditions if he didn’t quit.  Then the doctor told him a story about one of his other patients.  Lung cancer took his life, but getting to that point involved several surgeries, radiation, and finally totally disability.  My father had 8 children.  He needed to work.  So, he left that doctor’s office and never smoked again.  I remember that time well.  He wasn’t all that pleasant to be around, but he quit.

Stories are probably the best way to go about creating images that will give your sermon impact that will stick with your hearers.   Why?  I think a woman named Lisa Cron put it well in her book, Wired for Story: the Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence  (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2012.   In a great simplification of her book, she says that everyone likes a good story because we are “wired for stories.”  It is part of our DNA as human beings.

Story Telling and Stickiness

The better the story, the more it will remain with your hearers.  This, I think, is one of the reasons I like to listen to novels being read while I’m driving, particularly on long road trips.  They draw me away from the monotony of the freeway and put me elsewhere.  I just finished listening to a book where the characters were so vivid, and their experiences so colorful, that I still have phrases and parts of the story reverberating in my mind.

The Science Behind the Creation of Images and Stickiness

The research into what is memorable shows a couple of things.  First of all, messages delivered as stories are up to 22 percent more memorable than facts.  (“The Science of Storytelling,”  OneSpot.come, July 1, 2017) 

In that same blog post mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is pointed out that the brain processes images sixty times faster than words alone.

Think about an ad that you’ve seen recently.  The most memorable tell stories.

Your Sermons and Creating Images for Impact

Think about your last message.  What stories will people remember?   Where do you get such stories?  Listening. carefully to the stories around you.  Reading broadly.  Researching  what is happening in your community and world..  I’m preaching this coming Sunday on the need for revival in the church, and in the introduction I’m giving statistics on the state of the church, but I’m also telling a story about a church that died a gradual death that is in the same area as the church where I am preaching.  My purpose is to connect people to the reality that this could happen to them.

Conclusion

Creating images that will give your sermon impact will make people remember not just your sermon, but will help your listeners apply it to their lives in a more lasting way.