Plagiarism – “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source.”
“One day I was walking alongside the seashore and I noticed that thousands of starfish had washed up upon the shore….”
If you have been in the church for any amount of time you probably know where I’m going with this illustration because you’ve heard it several times from pastors all claiming it as if it were their own. In fact while I was in college I heard this illustration three times during my four years in chapel by pastors who were telling it like this actually happened to them!
Sadly, we’ve grown accustomed to plagiarism in illustrations. We don’t expect or require that our pastors are always telling us the truth or are genuinely giving an example of something that happened to them. When I hear a pastor preach I honestly do not know what to believe anymore. Did this man really throw starfish back into the ocean? Is this man’s nephew really in the army? Does he really have a friend that plays professional baseball? I don’t know anymore! More importantly, why does the pastor feel like he has to lie to get his point across or to entertain the crowd?
What was once the case in the world of illustrations is now becoming the norm with entire sermons. Illustrations aren’t the only things getting stolen anymore. Even worse is the fact that some pastors encourage this by selling their sermons
This past Easter I got an email from Fellowship Church offering me Ed Young Jr.’s Easter Sermon for only 8.95 with his own handwritten corrections! Wow, imagine having a sermon with Ed’s handwriting on it!
Not only are pastors like Ed Young Jr. encouraging pastors to plagiarize at the expense of their own congregation, he is charging 10 dollars a sermon to do it! I’m not sure what is more unethical, preaching a sermon that is not your own and pretending like it is, or selling a sermon and making money on a sermon you’ve already been paid to preach for your own congregation. The phrase “peddling God’s word for profit” is certainly relevant in this argument.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article several pastors admitted that there was nothing wrong with this.
The Rev. Brian Moon said "Truth is truth, there's no sense reinventing the wheel-if you’ve got something that's a good product, why go out and beat your head against the wall and try to come up with it yourself?"
One author actually admitted that he was just happy to have a sermon worth stealing! He wrote an article on this subject for Pastors.com entitled, “Don't be original, be effective!” In this article he says, “Let's forget about originality – which is often a form of pride.” While I understand that we should draw deep from sources in church history and those smarter than us, most people use this as an excuse to live by this mantra “Don’t be original, be lazy!” There is obviously a misunderstanding in what it means to be effective. Are we effective because of the quality of a sermon an expert has written for us or are we effective because of the Holy Spirit’s power upon our words and God’s Word?
Even more interesting is the fact that this same author seems to change his mind on this discussion depending on the day, or more likely the audience he’s writing to. In Relevant Leader he encourages people to be original! His article in this publication is titled “What Ever Happened to Originality?” Completely to the contrary of what he wrote in the previous article he says here, “As leaders we must challenge our people to dig deep and pay the price that's required to be truly creative." He goes on to say “We have allowed ourselves in either desperation or ignorance to be duped by recycled ideas instead of thoughts that were really wrought by the Spirit himself." But that is precisely what he has encouraged us to do in the article for Pastors.com. So which is it?
His definition of plagiarism might be the problem. "Real plagiarism is taking stuff out of a book and putting it into another book.” He continues saying,. "Speaking, taking people's material and putting it into a speaking forum, is not plagiarism."
Actually that is exactly what plagiarism is by definition, written or spoken. Words are words, and stealing them are the same regardless of the platform. And throughout church history that has been a given.
For an ethics class at my seminary recently I read a book called Ministerial Ethics which has an appendix with examples of codes of ethics for ministers from years past to more current codes. In all of the codes from the early 1900’s this clause is present in some form:
“It is unethical for the minister to use sermon material prepared by another without acknowledging the source from which it comes.”
From denomination to denomination the issue of plagiarism was seen as an ethical issue. Using material from someone else’s sermon without acknowledging the source was wrong. But as you continue to read the more current examples of ministerial ethical codes, one little clause seems strangely absent from the code. I don’t think I need to tell you which one.
Not today however, pastors all over the country and taking sermons and even worse, buying sermons from websites such as www.pastors.com or www.creativepastors.com (how creative is buying a sermon online?) or just getting them for free on www.sermoncentral.com and preaching them word for word as their own with no intention or conscious telling them that they should cite where the sermon came from.
So what has caused this shift from plagiarizing being one of the top ethical issues for ministers to it being a complete non-issue?
Could it be our “easy button” culture that does not want to dig for God’s truth or take the time to listen to God for their congregation? Could it be that pastors are simply choosing convenience over the difficult work of interpretation and exposition? Why be original when you can be lazy?
I will be the first to admit that I do not preach 52 Sunday’s a year, nor do I understand all the pressures that come with writing a message every week on top of all the other demands. I am compassionate about the difficult role that pastors must face. And because of my lack of experience in this role I asked another pastor who has more than 20 years of preaching experience. I have not asked his permission to use what he has said so I will leave him nameless.
When I asked what his view of plagiarism in preaching is the first thing that came out of his mouth was this statement, “Buying other people’s sermons doesn’t take seriously the call to be a pastor to a specific people, in a specific time, in a specific place.” I agree, what Rick Warren has to say to his congregation does not necessarily and I would say usually does not have much correlation with what God wants you to speak to your congregation.
He went on to say that a pastor should be able to preach a good sermon every week and there are three reasons why they would not be able to do that. I have added a possible fourth and expounded upon the reasons.
1. The pastor does not have the gift or calling to preaching.
Preachers have an innate desire and passion to study God’s word and to preach the revelation that God has given their community. If the person has no desire to pour themselves into God’s word and plead for a message on behalf of their community, he probably does not have the calling to preach.
2. The pastor does not have enough time because of other demands.
This does not legitimize plagiarism but I am compassionate to this reason more than the others. A pastor during his week may simply have too many demands on their lives to be able to spend 10-20 hours preparing a sermon for Sunday. Unfortunately the elders have lost sight of the priority of preaching and the responsibility of the pastor to be spiritual leader and not just CEO of a business. This needs to change. There is a misunderstanding of what the primary responsibilities of the senior pastor are: to pray and to preach. To this I say, the pastor has got to learn to say NO!
3. The pastor has simply gotten lazy and has no discipline to study God’s word.
This goes back to our easy button culture. The pastorate is a great place for a lazy man to hide as I have heard one pastor say. That is true! Unfortunately I think this is a predominant reason that pastors would rather buy a sermon than spend the time themselves preparing. Why spend so much time crafting a message when one is just the click of a button away. The pastor has lost the discipline to listen to God on behalf of their community. And in my opinion when this happens, the pastor ceases to be a pastor regardless of what his title tells him.
4. The celebrity status of preachers has intimidated them to the task.
Because of the way we worship pastors at large churches, many preachers believe that if their messages are not as good as a mega-church pastors’ message is, then it isn’t worth preaching.
If you think that these other “celebrities” can preach better than you can to your own congregation, then it’s probably time to wrap it up. Does Ed Young Jr. or Rick Warren really know the people in your community? Of course not, you do. So if you are not better prepared to preach to your own people, my suggestion is simple: it might be time to look for a new job.
The pastor I spoke with made a bolder statement later, “Plagiarism is the prostitution of preaching, I disagree with it on so many levels.” This prostitution runs both ways. When a pastor sells a sermon manuscript to make double profit, this is wrong. I have heard many say that they sell their sermons because they want to be a resource and help other churches succeed. If this were true however, then my question is this, “Why don’t you just give it to the church for free?” Why would you charge money on something you are already getting paid to do if the entire motivation was to help other churches? It’s simple, you wouldn’t. This is another way that the capitalistic church can make a few bucks and sadly take away money from struggling churches that actually need it. Plagiarism is more than an ethical issue, it is a stewardship issue at heart.
When you buy or steal someone else’s sermon everyone loses. It hurts the people that God has entrusted you to preach His message. It hurts you because you are not taking the time or developing the discipline to sit and listen to God. It spends money your church could be using for more beneficial purposes. After all, the church is paying you to write a sermon not to contract it out for 10 dollars! Worst of all, plagiarizing is short-circuiting the Holy Spirit’s role upon your own life and the life of your congregation. God has a specific message that he wants to give your congregation. It is your job as a pastor to listen and be the conduit of that message. Not to give the message that God gave Rick Warren to give to his congregation in Southern California.
When pastors stop listening to God, studying Scripture themselves and instead buy a pre-packaged sermon, they stop being pastors. Instead they turn into lazy consumers who are either burnt out on speaking every week and probably need a break, or idolaters thinking that a “celebrity” preacher can probably say it better than what God can give them personally.
The joy of being a pastor is getting to sit down, open up our heart to our Creator and plead for a Word for Sunday! Don’t get lazy and don’t let other demands get in your way this Sunday. The vocation that God has called you to requires it, and your people are dying for it.
16 comments:
Well Said!
Very good words.
There seems to be a fine line between ministering to a group of people and running a scheduled show.
In my opinion, I don't see any problem with using someone elses sermon, video, drama, etc. when it applies to ministry.
If a pastor writes a creative, relevant message that really touches the audience and moves more people to invite Christ into their heart, then why wouldn't another pastor want to use that same message to create the same God-inspired impact on his/her congregation?
Having said that, if it were me I would probably not charge others to use those materials unless I needed to offset the cost of creating those materials or making them available to others.
Hey John,
Thanks for taking the time to weigh in. I guess I would respond by asking, isn't the job of the pastor to write a creative, relevant message that touches the audience and moves more poeple to invite Christ into their heart every week? Isn't that what God has commissioned us to do?
Secondly, how many times do you hear a guy take a sermon off of the internet and cite that it is some other dude's sermon. Never! That would be embarrassing for the pastor! And if it is a good sermon like he thinks, he wants the credit for it. There is a larger ethical issue involved in this as well. One of the most disturbing things is that several of those sites I mentioned encourage pastors to be unethical by taking their sermon and pretending that it is their own (after they pay 8.95 of course because now they own the rights)!
But there is a fine line between listening to someone's sermon, or reading a sermon manuscript that some pastor wrote and having it inspire you in your own message writing, or taking a quote here or there, or for that matter even using a pastor's basic structure for the message (if it lines up with the structure of the text). But to buy someone's sermon, preach it as your own, and continue to do this week after week is not just unethical, it's irresponsible.
Another reason I think this is wrong is that it leads down a slippery slope (I realize this is the weakest argument). We start to depend on other people to do the work God has called us to do in our personal study and our exposition and it feels good to not have to do the hard work and pretty soon we're preaching some other guys sermon every week because it gives us more time with people! I think anything that leads us to a place where we are lazy, where we are not studying the Word of God for our congregations and pleading for God to give a word to them, is leading us to place where we are no longer a pastor.
And as far as video's drama's, those things. Sure, use what you want and cite the sources. But resources that are used to illustrate the Word of God, is much, much different than a message we are speaking on behalf of God to our people!
Interesting article. Very well articulated. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I've never out and out stole some other dude's sermon, but I've certainly elaborated on some ideas or stories or examples that I've heard before. It's hard because, as a smart guy once said, there really isn't anything new under the sun. Even things that originate in our own heads were probably said at one time or another from someone else's mouth. I do think though of the scripture that tells us not to worry about what to say when we defend ourselves in front of judges because the Spirit will give us the words. I think the same is true of week to week preaching. If we have the gift, I would have to imagine that would include hearing from the Spirit on the subject. I"m not sure the goal is always to be as creative and original as possible. I mean, John Piper is a pretty good preacher and he's not real creative at all. His illustrations are pretty lame. But when he preaches, I believe the Spirit moves. (that being said, I do disagree with him from time to time)
It probably goes back to the issue of the heart. If someone is being lazy and stealing sermons off the internet every week, he's probably got more issues that the origination of his sermons.
the problem i have with minister's using other people's stuff is, just like you said dustin, that i don't know what to believe anymore. isn't it a horrible thing to not trust your MINISTER? i bet that if people were polled, the number one reason why they stay or leave a church is based on whether or not they like the preaching. now, whether or not that is a good reason to choose a church, it is a high calling and should be treated as such. if i can't trust that the minister is telling the truth over a starfish story, i'm not going to trust him (or the church leadership) in the other stuff.
You're right: I've never heard a pastor say he got a sermon from someone else... I'm not a pastor but maybe there is some unspoken wink-wink handshake deal that says "I'll use yours and you use mine"?
If God can use one pastor's message to inspire another pastor then I'm good with it, even if it's the same message with or without citing the source.
I do agree though, that using another pastors personal story like it's your own is not right. You should be able to hear another message and make it your own by customizing it to your audience, your demographic, your life experience.
thanks for posting the article. through my friend phil i actually met christine while she was in the midst of writing this article. i encouraged her to talk to haddon robinson about this matter and i wish she would have. i'm sure haddon would have had something incitefull to say about it.
as for stealing sermons d, i'm with you. i personally find stream-of-consciousness preaching that is based on an actual biblical passage more interesting than re-heated rick warren sermons. moreover, as much as i am growing to respect the hours that pastors have to spend in personal care, i still think that if you are paid to be a professional christian you should be able to carve out ten hours a week for sermon preparation. if professional christians can't allocate that small amount of time to sermon prep then i suspect that their priorities are a bit disordered.
of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but reheated sermons STILL SUCK.
i neither condemn nor condone those who view this issue differently. but i do humbly suggest that they start stealing their sermons from more interesting sources such as haddon robinson, eugene lowry, fred craddock and tim keller.
who's Christine?
I wrote this article!!!
Hey John, it's interesting to hear thoughts on this from someone outside the pastorate. I really appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts. When I wrote this article I was thinking in terms of pastoral integrity and ethics, but I guess I am not really taking into consideration the perspective of a person in the congregation as much. What you said makes sense from your perspective, i would like to think on that some more.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this? What would you do if you found out your pastor was buying sermons on the internet? Would it bother you? Would you care?
*Deep Breath, and knuckles crack...*
Alright Dustin, you are obviously set off by a specific example (assuming more than the book). Also you and I have had this conversation a few times already.
So here's my thoughts. I work in a different environment than most pastors. i get the opportunity to be a pastor on a team of pastors that each week we plan 9 weeks out the services and content of each. then together we write our thoughts, do the study, film the videos, and produce the content of the entire service according to our collaborative planning. Each week we pray and ask God to lead us as we plan what to teach our congregation.
I also agree that using someone else's story as your own is always a loss. Though I do appreciate the insight and content of other good thinkers and preachers when it comes to preparing what we do each week for our own congregation. I believe their minds and ideas help us to be sharper as we plan what to say. (so far I assume you agree from what you said)
Though something that I thought of as I read -YOUR ARTICLE- (not sure why people thought it was someone else's, your blood is all over it.)
was the early church.
I started to think about Jesus' messages that he gave the Sermon on the mount in Galilee, or other times he spoke in public. I started to wonder about the disciples and especially Paul about their weekly schedule and their sermon preparation. I know Christ prayed fervently, I know he was in tune weekly with the Father. But maybe in the early church there wasn't "church" as we know it. (Insert "Of Course Not" Here) We are all consumer christians right? We are consumer driven as pastors, and as attenders. Maybe. But things are significantly different than they used to be.
What I hope hasn't changed is the Lead persons ability to connect with God and lead the people in whatever way God reveals to him.
But as far as process, I am not sure there is only one process, I am not sure there is only one way to do church. I am not sure there is only one way to give a sermon. Maybe the fact that we give a sermon every week on sunday morning from 11:00-12:00 is a problem. I can't say that as I look at the Life of Christ that he spent his time preparing for his weekly sermon. What I can say is that he spent his life teaching. I can say that he spent his life loving and helping. I can say that his life was radically different than what people expected him to be.
I agree that some people shouldn't be pastors, I agree with you that Plagiarism is wrong.
I think the problem with this argument, and the reason it makes me so frustrated when people point fingers at selling/buying whatever is that "church" has become a "time" when you meet at a "place" each week and it is not what the church really is. The church is us, now each day, living as best we can to Honor God with our lives. And as far as the "Sermon" goes, why is it that the sermon is how we hear from God and not the daily stories of redemption, life change, and restoration of people? Christ did so much for us and we have to put it in a process for it to make sense to us. Lets make an outline, lets find some stories, and lets bring it to the people to see if it will change them. I'm sure that is what Christ did before each talk. I'm sure he passed that on to his disciples. We have the sinners prayer, why not the preachers process...
for the record: there was another article referenced in this post by christine sataline of the wall street journal. that's the article i was referring to.
nick, assuming that you work for community christian, i am mildly intrigued by the communal way they prepare sermons in that community. i still think that the leadership community's time would be better spent wrestling with a cohesive text than hanging scripture upon a relevant topic, but the communal model is still attractive.
pax.
Nick,
I'm not sure I find any disagreement in what we're each saying. I like the idea of preparing a message as a team. I think if you're in a situation that you can do that, there's definite advantages to that and I would love to do it that way.
"why is it that the sermon is how we hear from God and not the daily stories of redemption, life change, and restoration of people?"
Because that is how God chose to act and speak, is through the Scriptures. I never said we could not hear God speak through other's stories, etc. but what I know FOR SURE is that God has chosen to speak through Jesus (the Word) and the Scriptures (the Word). So why wouldn't we proclaim the message we know FOR SURE came from God??? And why wouldn't that be the most important thing in the life of the community. I would much rather hear about what God has said then what someone has "felt God saying to them."
But I'm still not sure I can find anything in your comment that is disagreeing with what I said. Can you tell me specifically what you disagree with???
Stealing a sermon takes all the FUN out of preaching. I absolutely love it when the message I'm working on starts to come together.
Oh and the Rick Warren references just made my day.
Right on!
I've been a pastor for almost 9 years. The first few years of my ministry I fell into many of the traps you talk about in your blog. I subscribed to Homiletics, found illustrations online, used old sermons of mine. But as I grew in in my faith (Yes, pastors continue to grow) I found all this to be phony. I was not true to myself, my congregation, my call, or my Lord. Now I almost never write out my sermons. Instead through prayer and deep study I chew on God's Word and his message for my context all week long leading up to Sunday. Yes it is more work. For instance I'm not able to do much on Saturday night because my mind is focused on the Word I will proclaim the next morning. And yes there are many times I wish I had a greater ability to create wonderful spontanious illustrations, but by preaching this way I'm true to myself, my call, and God's Word. What's cool about all this is that I can truly see more fruit being bore for Christ through seeds I plant while preaching. The Holy Spirit is the source of my sermons and its the Holy Spirit that causes those assembled to hear the gospel. I'm more vulnerable preaching this way. It's scary at times. But my authentic witness has changed lives. I love to preach and thank God for my call.
Your comments about all-star preachers selling their sermons reminds me of a comment Martin Luther made about the sale of indulgences during the Reformation. If the Pope can send souls to heaven through a piece of paper, why doesen't he just give them away?
As someone who does pastor I agree with you on much of what you say. Although one poster, said it only takes 10 hours to prepare a sermon. That is very in accurate. Try more like 20. Most preaching books would give the ratio 1 hour study for every minute you preach. With computer software like Logos that has been cut down. It still takes time to not only prepare, but also practice the sermon. You should not copy a sermon, in the case of illustrations I don't always verbalize the source, but since I use PowerPoint I put the reference on the slide. I also agree that you shouldn't sell your sermons, especially since pastors are paid to preach. There is one exception. If a pastor does a series and decides to develop it into a book, it should be ok to sell. That is where many books by pastors come from.
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