I have a fascination with metaphors! I never ceased to be amazed at the power of metaphors to totally revoultionize the way people think! I’ve always believed that metaphors are the key to communication. Aristotle said, “The greatest thing in style is to have command of metaphor.” Jesus was the master of metaphors. And His use of metaphors has turned me into a connoisseur of metaphors! I still remember when I feel in love with metaphors. It was when I bought a book of metaphors ten years ago titled The Babinski Reflex. I seek out metaphors everywhere. Just last week I did quite a bit of research on the slingshot effect because I loved it as a metaphor for relationships.

I think Jesus was so memorable and is so quotable because he spoke in metaphors. He usually would share one “organizing metaphor.” Most of them were agricultural because he lived in an agrarian society. If Jesus were communicating in our culture I’m positive he’d use technological and athletic and scientific metaphors. I just wonder if our preaching has become too analytical. I wonder if “three point” preaching only diffuses the message and dilutes its impact. I enjoyed taking homiletics in college and seminary, but I think I learned as much about “how not to preach” as I did about “how to preach.”

Dick Foth shared something with me years ago that totally changed the way I preached. He told me to make one-point. I’m forever grateful for that advice. Many of my sermons have multiple points, but I usually try to have one “big idea.” And I’m feeling more and more drawn to preach one-point messages, to have one big idea, to have one organizing metaphor. I like the metaphor of a kaleidscope for preaching–call it kaleidscopic communication. A kaleidscope is one object, but you look at it from different angles to reveal different patterns. That’s how I try to preach. I try to help listeners look at the same truth from different angles.

I don’t want to say lots of stuff that people don’t remember. I don’t dismiss the “cumulative effect” that messages have week in and week out. But I want to say things in a way that people remember forever. And that usually requires saying one thing and saying it in a very creative or very memorable way. Metaphors are the key!

The Law of Physics was an attempt to build messages around different laws of physics. So I’m doing this on some level. We try to approach each week with one “big idea.” But I feel compelled to do it with greater intentionality. I need to say less so people hear more.