Several months ago, I ran across an article that encouraged pastors to plagiarize sermons. The article came from a well-known U.S. pastor who exhorted pastors to "stop all of this nonsense of spending 25 or 30 hours a week preparing to speak on the weekend." Instead, he held up as a model some pastor-friends who get "approximately 70 percent of their messages each week from other people ? word for word according to them. They fill in their own personal illustrations and stories, of course."
Why don't more pastors adopt this model for success? Pride. He writes: "In my mind there is a tremendous amount of pride (let's call it what it is) when we insist on being completely original as communicators. In our desire to give ?killer messages' we are dishing out something far less." My humble response . . . "HOW ABSURD!!!!"
Alright, I know what this pastor is trying to say. I agree completely with him when he writes: "Borrow creatively from others in the Church world." I would argue that any preacher who insists on being completely original is stupid! But pride may not be the issue. Pride, at least for me, manifests itself when I try to copy too closely what others are doing.
Last Sunday, I attended a growing church on the edge of a university town. The pastor preached a fine sermon on Ephesians 2:1-10 and introduced it with an illustration from Les Miserables. Guess how I'm going to introduce my sermon on Ephesians 2:1-10 when I preach through Ephesians this fall?! Yes, I advocate begging, borrowing, and stealing ideas from others! But I still have to labor through, pray through, and think through the text for myself. Otherwise, I'm cheating the people I lead.
Scripture places a premium on pastors who labor in preaching and teaching (1 Timothy 5:17). Using a ?heat and serve' method does not take this seriously enough. Nor does it lead to the effectiveness on which the writer of the article wants us to focus. He points to pastors or cites pastors who have churches of several thousand and borrow most of their messages from others. I, too, have friends who are lead pastors in churches of several thousand. But each one of them spends a minimum of 15-20 hours on sermons. These pastors borrow illustrations, wording, structure, and exegetical insights from others. But they do the hard work in the text and in crafting a sermon through the filters of (1) their personal relationship with God and (2) their church's unique situation.
This discussion raises some interesting questions. Where is the line between legitimate and illegitimate borrowing? What are the ethics of citing sources? How much time is "too much" or "too little" when it comes to sermon preparation?
The article I read encourages pastors to "hit a homerun this weekend with the help of a message master!" I agree. But don't let the message master do all the work which God is calling YOU to do.
Posted by Steve Mathewson at 8:58 AM on March 13, 2007
Comments
I agree with your sentiments. I think that the difference between research and plagiarism is in crediting your sources. If I'm quoting word-for-word, I have to make it obvious that I'm reading someone else's material. If I'm using ideas or structure that someone else developed, but doing it in my own words, I have to give a general citation to that effect. I just don't see how you can preach someone else's work word-for-word without attribution and be anything other than phony.
Posted by: Dennis Mullen on March 13, 2007
I agree with you to. God has something to special to say to you and to your congregation and that may not necessarily be the same thing he's given the other preacher to say to his congregation.
Posted by: Dan on March 13, 2007
Thanks for the article, Steve. Provocative thoughts.
It's not a problem at all to preach someone else's sermon if you are a technician, a hired hand. But it just doesn't work if you're a pastor. Sure, borrow ideas and illustrations. But preach THEIR message to YOUR people - that's simply abdicating your role as pastor.
Posted by: Bill White on March 14, 2007
Someone had said, "Even I got the milks from other people's cows, I must work still to produce butter!"
The pastors who took the time to research into other people's sermons had already committed to put in the time. It's the one that put in no time for either his own sermon, or just get any other's sermon is the problematic ones.
It's putting in the time, not so much of where you get your inspiration from...
Posted by: Bumble on March 15, 2007
Thanks, Steve. I appreciate your thoughts. I have an associate pastor who is taking a speech class right now and is asking the same questions.
If we really understand that teachers will incur a stricter judgment, how can we preach someone else's stuff? And how can we do it without giving them credit? Original ideas from someone else need to be credited. Ideas that have been around a long time like, "You can get better or bitter" I don't think have to be credited to anyone. We can simply say this idea has been around a while and still holds true. Also, if I get an illustration from preaching today.com, I don't think I have to say John Bukema tells us that Corrie Ten Boom did this or that. I think you can simply tell the story that is on the web site.
Posted by: rev b on March 15, 2007
Why are you not posting the guys name?
It is Steve Sjogren.
Steve, you can't 'trick' someone into a relationship with Christ.
Posted by: Michael Newcomb on April 24, 2007
Michael, I didn't post the guy's name because I wanted to focus solely on the issue, not the personality. I agree, of course, that we can't trick anyone into a relationship with Christ. But we must, like the Apostle Paul, wrestle with how to connect to various kinds of people in our culture in order to reach them for Christ (1 Cor. 9:19-23).
Posted by: Steve Mathewson on May 4, 2007