True, sourced stories for sermons and lessons. Search by keyword, theme, or Bible book.
33 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.
Albert Lexie Gave His Tips Away
Twice a week for more than 30 years, Albert Lexie rose before dawn and rode buses for an hour and a half from Monessen to Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
An Eleven-Year-Old Told Lincoln to Grow a Beard
In October 1860, an eleven-year-old girl named Grace Bedell in Westfield, New York saw a picture of Abraham Lincoln and wrote him a letter. She told him his face was so thin that if he let his whiskers grow, he would look a great deal better, and she would try to get her brothers to vote for him.
Bikila Ran Barefoot Through Rome
The 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome started at 5:30 in the evening and finished in the dark, with torches lighting the ancient streets. One of the runners was an Ethiopian named Abebe Bikila, and he was running barefoot.
Booker T. Washington’s Entrance Exam
Born into slavery, young Booker T. Washington heard about Hampton Institute in Virginia and decided he would get there somehow, even though it was about 500 miles away.
Cal Ripken Just Kept Showing Up
Lou Gehrig played 2,130 games in a row, a streak so long that people called it unbreakable. On September 6, 1995, Baltimore's Cal Ripken Jr. played his 2,131st straight game.
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.
Chuck Feeney Gave It All Away While He Was Alive
Chuck Feeney co-founded Duty Free Shoppers in 1960 and became a billionaire. Then he did something almost nobody does.
Cliff Young Shuffles to Victory
In 1983 a 61-year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young lined up for the Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon, about 875 kilometers, against some of the best ultramarathon runners in the world.
Could You Patent the Sun?
In the early 1950s polio terrified American parents. In the last years before a vaccine, it paralyzed somewhere between 13,000 and 20,000 children every year.
Does Anyone Here Owe Their Life to Nicholas Winton?
In 1939 a London stockbroker named Nicholas Winton worked his day job and then spent his evenings arranging permits, foster homes, and money so that eight trains could carry 669 children, most of them Jewish, out of Prague to safety in Britain before the war closed the borders.
Fleming Noticed the Mold
In 1928, Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming was working in his London lab when he noticed something odd. A mold had accidentally grown on one of his culture plates of staphylococcus bacteria, and around the mold there was a clear circle where the bacteria had died.
From Bagging Groceries to Super Bowl MVP
Kurt Warner went undrafted out of Northern Iowa. The Green Bay Packers brought him to camp and cut him.
George Washington Carver Pressed On
George Washington Carver was born into slavery near the end of the Civil War. As a baby he was stolen along with his mother, and only he was brought back, sick with whooping cough.
I Never Heard of Him
Going into the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, nobody was talking about Billy Mills. The favorite was Australia's Ron Clarke, the world record holder.
Jackie Robinson Didn’t Fight Back
Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers didn't just want Jackie Robinson for his talent. He wanted him for his character.
Mary Anning Dug Out a Monster
Mary Anning grew up poor in Lyme Regis on the English coast. Her father, a cabinetmaker, taught her to hunt and clean fossils on the beach, and when he died in 1810 the family sold her finds to pay debts.
Mister Rogers Goes to the Senate
On May 1, 1969, a soft-spoken children's television host named Fred Rogers sat before a Senate subcommittee. Funding for public television was on the line, and the chairman, Senator John Pastore, called himself a pretty tough guy.
Oseola McCarty Gives It All
Oseola McCarty spent her life washing and ironing other people's clothes in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 1995 she gave $150,000, most of her life savings, to the University of Southern Mississippi to help students who needed scholarships.
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.