True, sourced stories for sermons and lessons. Search by keyword, theme, or Bible book.
25 illustrations found
A Church Body That Chose to Die
On June 28, 1804, at Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, Kentucky, Barton W. Stone and five other Presbyterian ministers signed one of the strangest documents in church history.
A Ring Around Christian Eriksen
On June 12, 2021, Denmark was playing Finland in Copenhagen when midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field just before halftime. Captain Simon Kjaer was one of the first to reach him and appeared to clear his airway.
Bald Eagles Came Back
The bald eagle is the national symbol of the United States, but by 1963 only 417 nesting pairs were known in the lower 48 states. Habitat loss, illegal shooting, and the pesticide DDT had nearly wiped them out.
Beethoven Couldn’t Hear the Applause
On May 7, 1824, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony premiered in Vienna. Beethoven stood onstage, but he was so deaf that the conductor told the orchestra and choir to ignore Beethoven's beat and watch him instead.
Can We Have Two Golds?
At the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021, high jumpers Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy were dead even after two exhausting hours.
Eighty Strangers Form a Human Chain
On a Saturday evening in July 2017 at Panama City Beach, Florida, two young boys got caught in a powerful rip current. Before long their mother, their grandmother, and others were caught too, until nine people were struggling to stay afloat and gulping seawater.
Emperor Penguins Take Turns in the Cold
Emperor penguins live through the Antarctic winter on the open ice, where wind chills can drop to 76 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. They survive by working together.
Everyone Off the Plane on the Hudson
On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York. About two minutes later it flew into a flock of birds, and both engines lost almost all their power.
Eyam Shut Itself In
In September 1665, plague arrived in the English village of Eyam in Derbyshire. As it spread, the rector William Mompesson and the former minister Thomas Stanley led the village to do something hard.
Fifteen Whooping Cranes
Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America, and there were once more than 10,000 of them. Shooting and the loss of prairie habitat to farming nearly wiped them out.
Fire Ants Hold On to Each Other
When floods hit, fire ants do something amazing. They link together and build a living raft that floats.
Gander Opens Its Doors
When American airspace closed on September 11, 2001, 38 airliners were sent to the little town of Gander, Newfoundland. Almost overnight a town of about 10,000 people, with only around 500 hotel rooms, was hosting roughly 6,700 stranded travelers.
Houston, We’ve Had a Problem
In April 1970, Apollo 13 was headed for the moon when an oxygen tank blew. Jack Swigert saw the warning light and said, "Houston, we've had a problem here."
Kerri Strug’s Second Vault
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics the U.S. women's gymnastics team was on the edge of its first-ever team gold, but the Russians were closing fast.
Pando, the Trembling Giant
In central Utah, on the Fishlake National Forest, there's a grove of quaking aspen that looks like a whole forest. It's actually one living thing.
Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
For years people said running a mile in under four minutes was beyond what the human body could do. Roger Bannister was a 25-year-old medical student who trained around his studies.
Stone and Smith Shook Hands
On Saturday, January 1, 1832, two groups of believers met at the Hill Street church in Lexington, Kentucky: the Christians who followed Barton W. Stone and the reformers associated with Alexander Campbell.
Thanking Everybody Behind One Cup of Coffee
Writer A.J. Jacobs decided to thank every person who had a hand in his morning cup of coffee. He started with the barista and kept going: the people who roasted it, the truckers who hauled it, the farmers who grew it, even the folks who made the cup and the lid.
The Amish Families Who Forgave
In October 2006 a milk truck driver named Charles Roberts walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, shot ten young girls, killing five, and then took his own life.
The Lahaina Banyan Tree Puts Out New Leaves
In August 2023 a wind-driven wildfire tore through the historic town of Lahaina on Maui, and the famous banyan tree on Front Street, planted in 1873 to mark 50 years since the first Protestant mission there, was left scorched and standing in the ashes.