Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed posted something on “Sermons and Plagiarism” today. I wrote about this a year ago and have been thinking recently about the enormous pressure pastors/teachers are under to present compelling, well crafted messages 52 weeks a year, especially now that I am preaching fairly regularly now in my own internship. I thought I would repost this piece and ask for any thoughts you may have about why this happens and what the Church can do to re-form/create a culture that prevents this type of thing from being the norm.
There is a seedy underworld that most church goers know nothing about. It’s a world filled with buying and selling, profits and preaching, speeches and suckers the likes of which would shock the pants of Sister Betty and Brother John!
What is this 5-alarm scandal I speak of? Watch this YouTube video of Pastor James Merritt for yourself:
A few weekends ago I stumbled upon this YouTube video posted by an SBC pastor, Steve McCoy, on his blog, Reformissionary. If you watched the video, you saw Pastor Merritt being all generous like. Because, in his own words, he loves pastors, Dr. Merritt reached into that heart of gold and pulled out a special little gift from one pastor to another: one of his sermons! If you go and signup on for his newsletter in his den of crass Christian commercialism (read: website) you can download and have your very own copy of a Father’s Day sermon manuscript, complete with PowerPoint!
After watching the video I couldn’t let such a golden opportunity slip by, so I went to his site, signed up for the newsletter and downloaded my very own sermon package. After unzipping the file, there it was: my very own Father’s Day manuscript! The thing is 9 pages long, complete with the obligatory sappy introductory story, cheesy jokes, Christian cliches, and mm deep 4-steps to being-better-at-whatever-you’re-failing-at-as-a-Christian (in this case, parenting).
But this post isn’t about ranting about the state of the content of pastoral teaching and preaching. (That will be a post for another time) No, no, instead I want to ask a basic, knuckle-head question: Who decided it was OK to sell sermon manuscripts to pastors to use on Sundays? Who decided it was OK for pastors to copy and speak another pastors Sunday morning speech? Who decided it was OK for a few mega-star, mega-speachers (speaking-preaching as Doug Pagitt says) to decide what rural, urban, international, white, black, mainline, evangelical, mega-church, and house-church churches should be learning and studying in their own contexts?
Does anyone else find this incredibly odd, sad, and downright messed-up?
If you google “pastor sermon resources” you can find sites with audio files of preachers for listening enjoyment, but there are also plenty of pastor-specific sites that exist to provide sermons for pastors to preach. One website boasts “80,000 Free Sermons, Illustrations, & Free Trial for SermonCentral Pro!” and at another “you’ll find sermon series, leadership tools, and much more – all watering tools for your ministry” which is basically a nice way of saying “we offer thousands of sermon transcripts, sermon series, sermon packages, sermon illustrations, and sermon PowerPoints for you to pilfer with holy abandon…for a small fee, of course.”
It’s sad that the state of the church has driving men and women to pay for another dude’s (and dudette’s) speech about what they think God is saying and how they think people should live. It’s sad that a shepherd of the Bride of Jesus has been reduced (or rather maybe has reduced himself?) to a shopkeeper peddling his wares to desperate, needy pastors.
Why is this acceptable? Why do people do this? How does this happen?
I wonder if I will ever get that desperate? I can certainly understand the pressures to perform and deliver, the critiquing glares, and all the ears to tingle week after week could certainly take its tole. I think about my own future in such a position and can honestly say I don’t know that I would never pull such a stunt. In fact, I’m sure I will, and several times at that!
As I approach another year at seminary this fall and ministry in my own local context, watching this video causes me to pause and reflect about the awesome responsibility of pastoring. I do not mean the responsibility to deliver great, compelling prose or the need to be clever and cool on a stage. No, the responsibility of a pastor is to teach, shepherd, and equip the Body of Christ to be Jesus to the world around them. Part of that responsibility as teachers is to teach hyperlocally, to radically relate the teachings and way of Jesus to a local context, not simply overlay another pastor’s generic vision. Isn’t this type of practice grossly inauthentic? Paul talks about us being an open letter of Christ to be read by others, and as a shepherd who is charged with the task of caring for the letters and stories of others, what better way to do so than to share the story and particular narrative of the pastor’s self? How can a pastor pastor without authentically laying bare the story and letter of his or her life? That certainly does not happen with “Made In Saddleback” stamped sermons.
Again, I can sorta understand the predicament of being a pastor and do feel for those who look around at all the glitz and glamor and long for “successful” ministries. Then the likes of Pastor Merritt offer that success with purpose-driven books, snazzy sermons, and growth-guaranteeing strategies. It is sad. But what makes me even sadder is to think that there is no way in hell that it is going to stop. There is too much money to be made, too much success to be had, and too many inflated egos to prance around.
Ahh, the state of the church…
-jeremy
Interesting find! I’ve always known about ministers’ newsletters that come in the mail complete with a church calendar, sermon topics, outlines, “humorous stories” to be used as sermon illustrations, related hymns and suggested prayers… they’ve been around for as long as I can remember. I think it was back in the early 1980’s when I visited two local churches in two consecutive weeks and heard essentially the same sermon with the EXACT same first-person sermon illustration. (Which disturbed me… not the repeated sermon but the repeated 1st-person story. Seemed too much like speaking untruths, that is, lying, if you don’t say to your congregation “this is just a sermon illustration, it didn’t really happen to me”. But I digress…)
Anyway I’ve never heard of giving away entire sermons & series-es complete with PowerPoint. What next… “things to say on hospital visitation” for your iPod?
You wrote: And finally, I see this type of practice grossly inauthentic! Paul talks about us being an open letter of Christ to be read by others, and as a shepherd who is charged with the task of caring for the letters and stories of others, what better way to do so than to share the story and particular narrative of the pastor’s self? How can a pastor pastor without authentically laying bare the story and letter of his or her life?
I’m guessing you’re pointing to II Cor 3… the first few verses really say it don’t they? We (that is, all of us, but even more so for those called to ministry) are so very much a result of what others have written by the power of the Spirit in our lives. What we have to offer is therefore so very uniquely ours to share. We short-change both God and others when we don’t “share our letter” as you say, even if our speech and presentation isn’t as polished as some. People know authenticity when they hear it, and they respond to it too.
Now to prepare for the awesome privilege and responsibility of writing a few lines in other people’s letters…
“People know authenticity when they hear it, and they respond to it too.”
YES! And I think it’s a combination of authentic “letter sharing” and the Holy Spirit that creates life change in others through shepharding and teaching…
Nice thoughts and thanks for jumpin in the conversation here at novus•lumen, Peg!
-jeremy
something i’m struggling with is – why do we need a sermon every week? if a preacher has nothing to say to everyone then maybe that’s good! leave it till next week when there will be something that needs to be said. since when was it not a church service if some guy(man) doesn’t speak for half an hour?
in a culture that believes this is a necessary weekly thing then I fully understand the need for these sort of resources.
but in a culture that no longer buys into the schoolroom mentality of church, where the sermon becomes a necessary tool to speak into specific issues, or becomes a communal exploration of the bible that doesn’t rely on the spiritual and creative life of one person then these sites become useless.
yeah I’ve struggled with that myself as I’ve begun serving in a church community and thinking through how our (or any) gathering rhythm should be. When I was a part of an Episcopal church in DC, the sacramental nature of the service prohibited the sermon from taking center stage 1) because the architecture was focused around the alter rather than the spoken word like most Evangelical churches and 2) the service did not culminate in a 40 min exegetical speech, but rather our reidentification as a tribe with Jesus through the sacrament.
Is the point of gathering to listen to a guy or gal speak? Or is it about recapturing our identity in Jesus and reorient our life around the Eternal when our Monday through Saturday ravages that identity and orientation? Maybe if our gatherings were holistic and multifaceted, incorporating different voices and activities, the pressure to perform would be lessened and our communities wouldn’t be looking to one woman or man to give all the answers…
oh jeremy.. i weep for that so much.. i’ve lived my whole life in churches that have marginalized the table and replaced it with the podium. but i can’t make the people around me change their view.. fortunately my context is now seeing some energy toward a different ‘center’, thanks to the groundswell of places like this.
i’m with you in weeping bro! the light dawned for me when I was meeting with a guy for discipleship a few years ago and he was sharing some very interesting insight from a religious architecture class he had in college. He described how RC, Ang, etc… have a sacremental architecture: everything about the structure points toward the altar. Where as most bible-based, evangelical churches have a word-based architecture…everything about the structure points toward the pulpit and spoken word.
I was like: ding ding ding! The service ‘architecture’ completely reflects the building architecture! So instead of finding our ID and orientation around the table/altar/broken body and shed blood of Christ, we find it in a persons words. Now granted they are words in relations to the Text which is fine, but I wonder what even finding our ID in the Text does to the Church, rather than in the Body and Blood of Jesus…
good thoughts, man!
-jeremy
The first problem is that one would think that God is expecting us to focus our time of fellowship with him around a man made altar/table. The true altar/table is that of our hearts. The true tabernacle/temple is that of our bodies.
Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, my friends.
Pro 3:3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
1Cr 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
Secondly, what about the Christ that is triumphant, that rose from the tomb? It is his resurrection that we should be celebrating. That was for our victory. (Not Easter, but daily with our lives)
His death was for our sins, and his resurrection was to enable us victory over all that we’d encounter on earth.
2Cr 2:14 Now thanks [be] unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
The reason the church is so lost is because it’s leaders are so lost.
Paying for sermons? Come on.
Instead of being in the presence of God daily and hearing from him regarding what he wants to say to HIS PEOPLE we would rather lazily pay for a sermon pack (fully stocked) with all of the trimmings.
Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
Eph 4:14 That we [henceforth] be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, [and] cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Eph 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, [even] Christ:
so, whose doing the work of the ministry if the preachers are buying their sermons from one another….LOL
2Ti 3:16 All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
again, if everyone that is buying sermons and whining about doing their job is not giving the doctrine of Christ, reproving , correcting and instructing in righteousness through the Word of God, what are they doing?
Jesus asked the question of Peter and I here him asking it of “leaders” all across this country: Peter (Church Leader), lovest though me? (time after time he asks)
As you, like Peter sit in disbelief of why he would even ask you that, “Lord you know that I love you”.
“FEED MY SHEEP!”
Now, let’s go even further:
Here’s the Character of the Father:
He is not some dead beat Dad that won’t take care of his children. He is providing the food that you need to feed HIS SHEEP, not expecting you to figure out what to feed them.
Here was the ministry of Jesus as he walked this earth:
Jhn 8:31 ¶ Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed;
Jhn 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
What is this truth…. Or should I say, “Who is this truth?”
Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
and what is this we are to feed the sheep?
Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Mar 16:17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
Mar 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Mar 16:19 ¶ So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
Mar 16:20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with [them], and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
ANYONE THAT DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE GOOD NEWS AND PREACHES NOT THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST HAS NO BUSINESS IN A PULPIT OR PROCLAIMING TO BE A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST.
A DISCIPLE IS SOMEONE THAT FOLLOWS CHRIST. WELL, IF WE ARE TOO BUSY FOLLOWING CHRIST AND HIS EXAMPLE AND TEACHING HIS WORD, HOW DO WE HAVE TIME TO COPY SERMONS AND SIT AROUND MAN MADE ALTARS?
The Problem is that these “preachers” don’t have a relationship with God, therefore they have nothing to say, err go they think the guy that has 1000 sermons for sale is deep….LOL
NOT!!! He’s figured out yet another way to unjustly extract money from people and under the guise of the Name of Christ. That makes it all better, right?
Jer 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
Luk 11:9 ¶ And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Luk 11:10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Luk 11:11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if [he ask] a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
Luk 11:12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
Luk 11:13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall [your] heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Jhn 15:5 I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
1Ti 4:6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.
2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
I could go on and on for hours. If you want to discuss further contact me….
Just know that God is not pleased with the apostasy that is called the “CHURCH”
In His Love,
Kristal
Hmm. I guess this would be a bad time to mention that TheHighCalling.org gives out 3 sermon outlines every quarter for pastors who are looking to preach about the integration of faith and work.
Or is it okay for us to do that since we aren’t full of crass commercialism.
Steve McCoy wrote the last three sermons for us. All of our sermons include advice on how to make them hyperlocal. And we don’t charge. But we do require people to sign up to receive them. (How else would we deliver the subscription?)
On the one hand, I agree completely that this sort of thing can be inappropriate. Selling sermons can be problematic–especially if the pastor/preacher is taking credit as the author. But offering sermon help and inspiration isn’t always bad, right?
As a former denominational pastor, I look back and laugh/weep at the silliness of all of this sermon selling/sharing. I believe it stems from a view that we train our pastors in the seminary just as the world trains its managers in business school. Once we have abandoned discipleship (think Jesus actually living with, walking with, sharing experience with his students) we are destined to fall into the trap of seeking business models that ‘work.’ This is a cheap substitute for a living word from God shared in a fellowship. The typical evangelical church has acknowledged five valid ministries: Apostle (no longer active); Prophet (generally redefined as the proclaiming of the Bible by the pastor); Evangelist (still valid but mostly as a recruiting tool to get more members in our church); Pastor (redefined as CEO with a job description that keeps most members of the church from growing spiritually by doing all the ‘spiritual’ stuff for them); Teacher (pastor as CEO must also take this role, but others may function in this gift in ‘lesser’ roles like Sunday school).
Today, I disciple a group of people who are now at the point of launching ministries in prayer, missions, homeless ministry, youth ministry, evangelistic outreach, church planting, media and who knows what is next. They are encouraged to share what God is saying to them as we not only have teaching times but live life together. There is no substitute for this. My suggestion is for most pastors to get a job like the folks to whom they minister, contribute financially to ministry instead of be a user of resources in the fellowship, and live life with those we minister to. In this setting, we are much closer to the ministry styles of Jesus and Paul who, by the way, did not need to purchase sermon material!
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