Today’s Illustration: Legos

Legos

The Design Of “Today’s Illustration”: The Format & Purpose

The illustrations are designed to be different and fresh.
The illustrations are based on . . . .

True events
The lives of real people
“How it works” (which is what Tony Evans often uses)

Sometimes the illustration is well known in the preaching world, but we have done more research to add additional details that might prove to be interesting.
The basic facts of the event or person are laid out.
Quotations from books and magazine articles about the event or person are included.
“Key Illustrative Thoughts” are designed to get your mind thinking about possible ways to use the illustration.
The “Key Thoughts” catch some of the keywords and phrases found in the illustrations content which can be carried down into the message.
Other general or interesting information which might be of use is provided at the end.
Additional links for your own further exploration of the topic, person, or event have been included at the end. There is plenty more that could be used from the references.
We do all the research and work for you! Dig deeper into the story or event if you want and let us know about yet other ideas which can be useful!
Feel free to use all that is provided as you will. It is yours to use and to benefit your preaching, teaching and speaking.

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On This Day: August 10, 2018, LEGO celebrates its 86th Anniversary.*

Lego Company was founded in 1932, in Denmark.

It was founded by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a carpenter by trade.

It had 10 employees.

It was originally founded to make wooden toys.

Timeline:

1932 — Founded as a wooden toy company
1942 — Lego has a fire and burns to the ground
1946 — Lego buys the first plastic injecting mold to produce toys
1948 — Lego has 50 employees
1949 — “Automatic Binding Bricks” were the precursor to what we know today as “Legos.”
1958 — The Lego Brick is patented
1958 — The Lego brick as we know it today was created
1969 — 800 employees
1991 — 7,500 employees & 1000 molding machines
1999 — Legoland opens in California
2004 – Lego Company Faces Bankruptcy
2006 — 4,922 employees.
2011 — Legoland Florida Opens
2014 — 80th Anniversary
July 2015 — 600 Billion Lego Brick have been made.

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History & Facts:

An automated factory was built in Billund, Denmark, operating with almost no people.

There are 1000 machines making the bricks 24 hours a day.

The “plastic” for the blocks is heated and melted to 232 C plastic, shaped and then cooled — resulting in bricks — all under 10 seconds

Approximately 36,000 blocks an hour are produced.

Approximately 1.7 – 2.6 million blocks are made every hour.

15 – 19 billion blocks a year.

“Tiny People”

15,000 heads produced an hour
rubber stamped faced
with smiles and scowls
body and heads are then joined together
Figures such as: fireman – pirates – knights – harry potter characters

120 full-time designers are employed in various warehouses to create ideas and computers to help guide the process. It takes a month to create & develop some ideas.

In May 2013, the largest model ever created was displayed in New York City. It was a 1:1 scale model using over 5 million bricks, of the Star Wars X-wing fighter.

400 billion bricks have been sold around the world in the past 50 years.

“The LEGO® name is made from the first two letters of the Danish words LEG GODT, meaning “play well”.
Laid end to end, the number of LEGO bricks sold in 2012 would stretch round the world more than 18 times.
To reach the moon you would need to build a column of around 40 billion LEGO bricks.
The first mini-figure was produced in 1978. Since then more than 4 billion have been made – making it the world’s largest population group!
40 billion LEGO bricks stacked on top of one another would connect the Earth with the moon.
It would take 1 billion mini-figures, lined up in a single row to wrap around the Earth’s circumference one time. Today there are enough mini-figures to wrap around the Earth at least 4 times.”

— http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/inside-the-lego-factory-the-robots-machines-that-make-lego

It was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998.

“The bricks are so versatile that just six of them can be arranged in 915,103,765 ways.

“Lego” was voted “Toy of the century” – twice.

Key Illustrative Thoughts:

• God’s lego project — fitting every piece in place to end in an everlasting kingdom.
• God’s blocks are people, which when stretched from Genesis to Revelation create the story of Redemption.
• It only took one designer
• The events of life are determined by a God who is so versatile that they can be arranged in seemingly endless ways.
• The building blocks of your life
• God “lego-ed” the parts of your life, all for good.
• Bankrupt? Who would have anticipated that?
• Play Well
• God’s program and plan never changed. It was always about “wood” — a cross.
• Another “Carpenter” by trade
• No “tiny people with stamped faces” — all life-size, real, with an invaluable soul
• Grown from 10 to 7,500 employees — just to make a toy
• A toy that is known around the world in just over 85 years.
• “Toy of the Century” — What are believer’s known for?
• One of the “Product Characteristics — “Creativity”/ “Imagination”: Neither has entered into the heart of man what God hath designed and built!
• Unlimited potential

Additional Information and Links:

* It was on August 10, 2007, that LEGO celebrated its 75th Anniversary and a number of articles were written at that time, from which this material is gleaned.

1958 — “Ole Kirk Kristiansen passes away and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen becomes head of the company.”

“1963 — Godtfred Kirk Christiansen presents the company to the ten product characteristics: