Every once in awhile I have a concerned member of the congregation bring a petition or a message they received through email.  Sometimes it’s about a sick child who’s wish it is to receive cards from all over the world.  Other times they have news of a supposed threat to the Christians from atheist lobbyist.  I’m usually suspicious of these sorts of things and never forward them on if I get the email.

This is one reason I keep Snopes.com in my bookmarks.   Snopes is the ‘urban legends reference page’ that examines these rumors that have been circulating since the internet became popular.  It looks at different claims, organized in a wide variety of categories, and gives it a color coded rating of True, False, Mixed (that is some facts are true others are not)  or Undetermined.  With Snopes.com you can find out if Coke really invented the modern Santa Claus, if the seven dwarves represent stages of drug addiction or if atheists are trying to remove religious broadcasting from the airwaves.  (All false by the way.)

What makes Snopes another great resource for ministers is that it covers many of those ‘preacher stories’.  There are several stories I have heard as sermon illustrations that are complete lies.  Ministers hear them and continue to use them without bothering to check on their veracity.  Illustrating sermons with fabrications destroys a our integrity and it is only laziness or foolishness that would keep a preacher from checking if NASA scientists really discovered a missing day.

Finally, Snopes is a great source for actual stories of interesting events that can be used for illustrations.  I subscribe to the RSS feed so I can keep up with new stories, even if they’re never used they are usually pretty fun.