Welcome to My Sermon Illustration Database

Whether you're a preacher, teacher, or writer, every communicator needs fresh ideas that reinforce or highlight his or her points.  For decades I've collected illustrations and cataloged them by topic.  I'm making the database available here to everyone.

To use it, simply enter your desired topic in the Topic field.  If you enter multiple topic words, separated by spaces, you'll find only those illustrations that address both topics.  We've found that it sometimes helps to use double quotes, with spaces, to get more exact results.  So, if you just enter the word sin, you'll get all the illustrations under the topics of sin, sing, and single.  If you enter the word as "sin " you are more likely to find what you're looking for.

The Text field is helpful if you want to search within the text of the illustrations themselves.  So, do a search for "Tim Keller". and you'll get all the illustrations that have "Tim Keller" in them.  (Again, use the quotes.  Just typing the words Tim and Keller will get you every illustration with both Tim and Keller somewhere in the text, but it might have nothing to do with Tim Keller -- it may be an article about Tim Knight and Roger Keller.)

The ID# field is useful if you have found a specific illustration to which you would like to return later.  Just note that illustration's ID# and then, when you want to return to that specific illustration, just enter the ID# in the appropriate search field.

This database has evolved over the years to meet my own unique needs as a communicator, so you'll have to take it as it comes.  Some entries include links to Kindle books that won't take you to my Kindle content.  (You'll get the author's complete quote, though.)  Also, items clipped from a web page and copied into the database often preserve the formatting from the original source, which may make the entry look odd.  Despite the "raw" look to the entries, however, I hope you'll still find some use from my database.

While I'm making stuff available for free, here is more content that has always been available:

Past Newsletters.  All my devotional newsletters and leadership newsletters from April 2003 to March 2016 are available here.  The archive page has a search field that enables you to find a particular word or phrase across the entire collection of newsletters.  Please credit me as the author if you use my newsletters in your not-for-sale work.  If you want to use my content in your for-sale work, get my permission first (tom@hillcrest.church).

Current Newsletters. Sign up here to receive my weekly devotional in your email inbox. It will arrive in your inbox every Friday. Please credit me as the author if you use my newsletters in your not-for-sale work.  If you want to use my content in your for-sale work, get my permission first (tom@hillcrest.church).

Sermons. Sermons from April 2020 to the present are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast. All sermons delivered at Hillcrest since 2000 are available here.  In many cases, listener outlines and small-group discussion guides are included.  Please credit me as the author if you use my newsletters in your not-for-sale work.  If you want to use my content in your for-sale work, get my permission first (tom@hillcrest.church).

Evangelism Material.  Our church's evangelism program is called "The INVITE Strategy." You'll find my lessons through the six-step process here. Feel free to use it in your own setting. I also teach a "seeker" class called "The Anchor Course: Exploring Christianity Together." There is a cost for the books (paperback; Kindle), but the free video lessons can be found here.

Social Media. Find me on Facebook and Twitter.

For any questions on the use of the illustration database, please contact me at tom@hillcrest.church. My thanks to Paul Waldo for managing this database (along will all the other content on our church's auxiliary website (www.hillcrestaustin.info).  For our church's main website, go to www.hillcrest.church.