You chose the ministry. Presumably, you felt led to the ministry by the call of God. While not the most lucrative vocation you may have followed, I assume that your call to the ministry was one of discernment, thought and prayer.
In your years of theological study in seminary, you undoubtedly received instruction in homiletics, likely had your preacher heroes, and as a young pastor, had visions of the day when you were in front of a large congregation, delivering your message with fire, conviction, and panache.
At what point did you decide to plagiarize your sermons?
Before you bristle at the suggestion, let me spell out how I think this is occurring with you and many, many of your brethren.
First, I understand that the challenges of being a pastor today are significant. You serve as pastor, administrator, counselor, judge, secretary, professor, and sometimes, trustee. How are you expected to sandwich in 20 hours of sermon preparation each week, and still deliver an out-of-the-park sermon each and every time?
The M.O. is well known; you log on to www.pastors.com, (or one of the many other online-sermon clearing houses) search for a sermon or sermon series that you think is "timely" or "topical", purchase the transcripts, download the Word document, and in short order, you have a ready-made message. Perhaps you only use the outline and write the entire text yourself. Perhaps, however, you only swap out some of the text and actually deliver Rick Warren's words, passing them off as your own.
What's the harm? After all, Rick Warren, the standard-bearer for selling pre-packaged sermons, virtually dares you to plagiarize by not only offering these up for sale, but by stating on his website that you should "use the outlines and transcripts for sermon ideas", providing the full sermon notes and outlines, biblical research, and the full text of his sermon.
Here's the harm: It's lying. It's stealing. It's Fraud.
The truth is, using resources for sermon preparation long preceded the current pool of online sellers of prepackaged scripts. In fact, even the writers of the Bible itself could be said to be guilty of plagiarism; when the writer of Matthew used The Gospel of Mark to craft his biblical account of the life of Jesus without credit or reference (I won't go into this theological touchstone here - there are plenty of other forums for that discussion out there) he was plagiarizing Mark. Using resource material is nothing new, and the very existance of the Bilography is a testament to that.
A pastor's resource material begins with the Bible itself - the very cornerstone of resource material for any pastor. And it should be the starting reference point, as you as pastor should always be immersing yourself in the Word as the basis of your weekly sermon preparation. Moreover, when you do reference the Bible as a source, most likely, you credit your source.
But there is a line between using source material and stealing source material. Naturally, there are sermon helps, books with sermon starters, and the wealth of internet pre-packaged sermons you can download. But the extent to which you rely on these items is what pushes you over the line into plagiarism.
In his excellent article regarding plagiarism on DesiringGod.net, John Piper says this:
- "To base the structure of your sermon on someone else's sermon, but to use your own words, is plagiarism."
This is a stern indictment; if you download a Rick Warren sermon outline and fill in the blanks with your own words, it's plagiarism. True? That may be a bit overstated, but have you ever decided to leave a line, an anecdote, or an entire paragraph, and read it as if it's yours? If so, you are plagiarizing.
But moreover, above and beyond the legal tort of stealing material, there is a huge ethical chasm being created. Your flock thinks that you are a master at skilled oratory; at crafting the perfect sermon, week after week. They are being lied to.
A lot of you justify this practice by quoting the old Ecclesiastical axiom that "there is nothing new under the sun". There is very little new that you, as a pastor, can craft to preach about. Right? It's all be said. That is a cop-out. Let's use that logic in another context:
I am a songwriter. Surely, every chord progression, lyrical twist, rhyme and melody has already been written. How can you possibly write something new with millions of songs in every conceivable combination committed to vinyl?
Simple - because with tens of thousands of words and millions of possible mutations of notes, melodic structure, tonal choices and more, I can write a new melody that has never been heard before almost without effort. Imagine the beauty I can create when I really work on something.
When I listen to the music of others, without question, it provides an inspiration. That goes without saying. But what would you say to me if I simply threw up my hands and said "there's really nothing new under the sun...I can come close, but I can't really write anything original." Then proceeded to play, before my congregation, a new song that I claim to have written with the title "My God of Wonders", complete with the lyrics "[My] God of wonders beyond our galaxy, you are [so] holy..."
I know what your reaction would be- shock, disbelief, and most likely, the expectation that I would pull the fraudulent song from the inventory and never do it again. I can either do "God of Wonders", which everyone knows I didn't write, or I can truly write a new song. What I can't do is to craft some amalgamation of a previously written song and my own song, pass it off as mine, and hope to get away with it. Most likely, I'll be sued for copyright infringement.
It amazes me that you pastors who feel no trepidation in pilfering and presenting a packaged sermon as your own are the same pastors who are overly cautious about CCLI, copying music in music library, broadcasting music on your website, using TV clips for your sermon which fall outside the CLVI license, an so on. But you'll literally phone in a sermon, pass off as yours some Saddleback rehash from 1998.
Why?
I am challenging you, pastor - to stop. Stop plagiarizing. Stop relying on pre-packaged internet sermons. If you do rely on them, at least do so with full disclosure. Think about the implicit agreement you have with your congregation - that their expectation is that you are writing your own sermon. With resources, of course, but YOU are writing, researching, immersing yourself in the Word, and crafting the message.
Would you feel comfortable telling your flock that you are using downloaded sermons, sometimes word for word? If the answer is "no", you know the right answer. Stop the practice now, and bring back integrity to the pulpit.
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