Representation via Krieg Barrie
The primary time Scott Gibson heard a minister plagiarizing subject material in a sermon, Gibson used to be an adolescent and the preacher used to be his pastor.
Gibson used to be a brand new Christian and a normal player in a weekly e-book team at his church. All the way through a Sunday morning sermon, because the church’s pastor recounted a private revel in from the former week, Gibson says the tale sounded acquainted: “It used to be directly out of the e-book.”
Every other member of the studying team additionally spotted the similarity, and faced the pastor. Later that afternoon, a deacon summoned Gibson and others to a gathering. Gibson says the deacons chastised the gang for hassling the pastor: “I virtually were given kicked out of the church.”
The revel in shook Gibson, however he caught with the Christian religion, and he later served as a pastor and an established professor of preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (He now teaches preaching at Baylor College.)
Since writing a e-book about pastoral plagiarism over a decade in the past, Gibson says he receives telephone calls a number of occasions a 12 months from individuals of church buildings going through a equivalent predicament: Their pastor has been plagiarizing too. What must they do?
Gibson thinks the issue is extra commonplace than some notice however says church buildings regularly don’t take into accounts it till after a disaster moves: “That is simply now not one thing other people wish to discuss.”
Plagiarism isn’t a brand new downside, however no less than some Christians were speaking about it once more not too long ago: In overdue June, Ed Litton, the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Conference (SBC), confronted accusations that he had copied chunks of sermons from J.D. Greear—the outgoing president of the SBC.
Days after Litton’s election to guide the country’s greatest Protestant denomination, movies circulated on Twitter appearing sturdy similarities—and every now and then an identical phraseology—between a few of Litton’s preaching from 2020 and a sermon collection Greear preached in 2019. Litton stated he had requested Greear’s permission to attract from his subject material on Romans, however he apologized for now not crediting Greear when he used parts of his messages.
In a 2019 sermon on Romans 8, as an example, Greear lists 5 “selfs” hostile to God: self-will, self-glory, self-gratification, self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency. In a sermon at the identical passage, Litton preaches the similar checklist. Greear recounts a tale about his driving force’s training trainer stomping an enormous brake at the passenger aspect of the automobile. Litton tells the similar tale. Greear says that since sin grieves the Holy Spirit, small spaces of compromise are simply as devastating as giant ones. Litton says: “Small compromises are simply as nice to the Holy Spirit as nice compromises.”
The sermon controversy has rattled the SBC, however it’s additionally raised broader questions on how a lot borrowing is an excessive amount of on the subject of preaching—in particular when busy pastors have get entry to to hundreds of sermons, regularly without spending a dime, however occasionally packaged for a rate. In a sermon-filled market, how must pastors pontificate? And the way must Christians concentrate?

Web sites providing sermon-related assets
THERE’S NO SINGLE FORMULA for the way pastors get ready and pontificate sermons. And there’s no loss of sermons to observe or listen on-line. Many church buildings livestream or publish sermons every week for individuals and outsiders, and a few church buildings publish message transcripts as neatly.
Different sermon-related websites marketplace at once to pastors as a useful resource to seek the advice of as they get ready their very own sermons. Once in a while they rate a rate. North Level Group Church close to Atlanta provides a ministry useful resource web page devoted to “top class sermon kits.” The website online says every equipment comes with “the entire assets you wish to have to ship the content material of this message.”
A hyperlink to licensing necessities for the fabric does come with conditions that “not more than 100 phrases could also be quoted at once from the collection” with out written permission from the ministry and that non-public examples from the collection must get replaced with suitable examples from the consumer.
It’s now not transparent whether or not the ministry conducts any follow-up to look if pastors are borrowing an excessive amount of language at once from the sermons advertised as kits. (A spokeswoman from North Level declined an interview request.)
Costs range, however one contemporary six-part sermon bundle sells for $120. The assets come with message transcripts from Pastor Andy Stanley, speaker notes, audio information, greater than 100 emblems and different graphics to accompany the messages, and a promotion video. The collection identify: “Higher selections, fewer regrets.”
The website online SermonSearch provides the textual content of pastors’ sermons and descriptions, a database of sermon illustrations, and preaching pointers for a rate, starting from an a l. a. carte acquire of a unmarried sermon for $5.99 to a $149 annual rate that provides get entry to to 360 sermons a 12 months. Members obtain a royalty for every sermon downloaded, in line with the website online. The sermon manuscripts come with a copyright realize that the database is supposed to “encourage the improvement of recent messages.”
The website online is a part of a community of alternative websites operated via Salem Church Merchandise that comes with SermonSpice—a website online with background graphics to accompany worship services and products and sermons. It additionally comprises Playback Media, a website online providing “the most efficient in mini films, church countdowns, and worship backgrounds.” An outline says: “Phrases on a display simplest cross to this point. We consider that the correct background or visible part can open up our worship in ways in which the broadcast phrase by no means may.”
Every other website online, SermonCentral, states its purpose as equipping pastors and says it accommodates “150,000 sermons, illustrations, and dramas” for analysis, with over 250,000 church leaders coming to the website online each and every week.
Sermon transcripts are unfastened, however the website online sells an upgraded club for customers to obtain sermon graphics and sermon slides and to extra simply replica and paste sermon transcripts for reference.
The website online additionally accommodates a remark announcing the gang is “adamantly hostile” to plagiarism and reserves the correct to freeze the account of someone filing plagiarized subject material. It asks customers to recognize the paintings of others of their preaching, however it additionally acknowledges the inherent barriers for any website online or church posting sermons: It’s just about inconceivable to ensure others aren’t misusing them.

Incoming Southern Baptist Conference President Ed Litton (status at left) and outgoing President J.D. Greear (kneeling at proper) communicate with denomination individuals on the conclusion of the yearly Southern Baptist Conference on June 16. Mark Humphrey/AP
CONSULTING OTHER PASTORS’ sermons isn’t flawed. Pastors automatically use commentaries and books to check for sermons, and a few say they in finding different preachers’ messages useful in that procedure. The Christian learn about device Emblems comprises sermon collections in its suite of Religious study assets for acquire.
However questions get up: How can pastors keep away from drawing an excessive amount of subject material from some other sermon or useful resource? What are the criteria for pastoral plagiarism?
Scott Gibson, the Baylor professor and writer of Must We Use Anyone Else’s Sermon?, provides a easy definition in his e-book: “Plagiarism is kidnapping somebody else’s ideas, phrases, or concepts.” (He notes that the Latin root of the phrase plagiarism manner “kidnapper.”)
But if pastors or scholars ask Gibson know after they’re crossing a line into plagiarism, he as a substitute suggests a distinct query: “Am I being an individual of integrity with the usage of this subject material? Am I doing my homework?”
After the talk broke over Litton’s sermons in June, the Alabama pastor talked concerning the homework that is going into writing his sermons. Litton stated he works every week with a preaching staff of 8 males from his church who assist with analysis and brainstorming for his sermon. He stated the staff means lets in him to mentor younger males for ministry and assists in keeping his personal voice younger.
Litton stated he and his preaching staff consulted Greear’s on-line manuscripts regularly all the way through the preparation for Litton to evangelise at the e-book of Romans. (Greear showed he gave Litton permission to attract from his subject material.)
After bloggers identified similarities between Litton’s sermon on Romans 1 and Greear’s message at the identical passage a 12 months previous, Litton stated he reviewed all 46 messages in his Romans collection. He stated he discovered “in some puts equivalent illustrations, quotes or issues of software. One stocks the similar identify, and one has a equivalent define.”
“I’m sorry for now not bringing up J.D.’s generosity and possession of those issues,” Litton wrote. “I must have given him credit score as I shared those insights.”
It’s unclear precisely what number of sermons proportion similarities and whether or not a equivalent development precedes the Romans collection. Via early July, Litton’s church had got rid of dozens of sermons relationship sooner than 2020. Litton informed The Washington Occasions that the church used to be taking away the fabric to organize for a brand new website online release. The church’s elders launched a remark announcing they got rid of the messages as a result of “other people have been going thru sermons in an try to discredit and malign our pastor.” (Litton later stated in an SBC podcast interview that each causes have been true.)
In the meantime, no less than one blogger identified similarities between a sermon at the e-book of Acts that Greear preached in 2013 and a message Litton it sounds as if preached in 2015. The movies display sturdy similarities between content material, illustrations, and informal jokes.
In his sermon, Greear says some other people believe God sending unsuspecting other people to hell whilst He mumbles in Latin: “tricky cookies.” Litton tells his congregation he’s talked to those that paint an image of a merciless God who sends other people to hell: “And in Latin He says, ‘tricky cookies.’”
An affiliate pastor at Redemption Church informed WORLD that Litton used to be out of the place of job and unavailable for interviews for a couple of weeks. The church’s management equipped a remark announcing Litton had proven a “dedication to do issues otherwise” in his discussions with the elders. The remark stated the leaders are growing a church useful resource that can outline plagiarism and description the information the preaching staff will keep on with to verify correct quotation going ahead.

PASTORS HAVE A RANGE OF IDEAS about how a lot subject material is OK to borrow from some other minister, however many emphasize the significance of mentioning any out of doors supply {that a} preacher quotes from at once or is dependent upon closely all the way through a sermon.
Some have quoted the overdue preacher Adrian Rogers as announcing it used to be fantastic to make use of his bullets in the event that they suit your gun, “however use your individual powder.”
A decade in the past, Christian theologian D.A. Carson wrote concerning the seriousness of plagiarism, announcing that taking up someone else’s sermon and preaching it as your individual is “at all times and unequivocally flawed.” He endorsed in opposition to the use of some other sermon’s construction or define in vital chunks, however stated when you do “borrow” you must cite the pastor.
Whilst many pastors seek the advice of out of doors assets like commentaries, books, and sermons, some additionally seek the advice of analysis assistants. In an interview, Greear informed me a analysis assistant on his full-time church body of workers is helping him acquire learn about subject material as he prepares to jot down his sermons. “Rightly using analysis aides manner the use of them to collate that subject material,” he stated. “Wrongly the use of them manner having them write your messages for you.” (Greear posts sermon manuscripts with footnotes on his church’s website online.)
Greear says that greater than a decade in the past he used the services and products of a analysis team known as the Docent Crew for roughly a 12 months. The Texas-based group hires researchers with some seminary coaching or levels to assist pastors with sermon analysis. The gang additionally prepares learn about curriculum for congregations and occasionally is helping church buildings habits surveys in their congregation or surrounding communities.
Greear says a Docent researcher generally ready a 30-page record with subject material from commentaries and illustrations for his sermon preparation however says the gang by no means wrote a sermon manuscript for him. (He says his present assistant doesn’t both.) Texas Pastor Matt Chandler stated he used Docent for equivalent analysis services and products for a few years and likewise stated the gang didn’t write his sermons.
Glenn Lucke, president of Docent, informed me via electronic mail that sermon analysis accounts for roughly part of the gang’s trade. Lucke says Docent supplies citations for any subject material it comprises from commentaries, information articles, and different out of doors assets, and says the gang doesn’t write sermons.
Jed Ostoich, a Michigan-based creator and editor, says he labored section time for Docent for roughly 4 years. (Ostoich is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary.) He says his first task concerned helping an elder at a church that had not too long ago misplaced its pastor.
The elder took on preaching tasks and wanted assist. Ostoich says he would analysis and write a couple of pages of observation at the elder’s sermon textual content and provides tips on construct the sermon and observe it. He stated he spotted a few of his writing ended up within the elder’s sermons however that he didn’t write the sermons for him.
After that contract ended, Ostoich says he labored with a staff of Docent researchers helping a well known pastor of a giant church, most commonly with writing initiatives. Ostoich says he used to be shocked when a handful of briefs he wrote on sophisticated New Testomony passages confirmed up as posts at the pastor’s weblog, with out a lot alternate.
Lucke informed me that Docent now and again writes place papers and articles for pastors and different church staffers: “A couple of church buildings have put parts of the object or place paper on their web pages, which is ok with us.”
Ostoich left Docent a couple of years in the past. He says he’s grown uncomfortable with the speculation of a device that would permit pastors to make use of people’s abilities and time to “manufacture a picture or a logo that would now not exist if just one particular person used to be doing it.” However, he provides, “An trade exists as a result of there’s a marketplace for it.”
THAT MARKET DOESN’T MEAN the use of a analysis assistant is flawed, however some seminary professors emphasize it’s particularly vital for college students or pastors additionally to ensure they’re wrestling with the sermon textual content themselves.
Hershael York says it’s one thing he teaches seminary scholars in his preaching categories on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He says learn about is vital, and being attentive to different sermons may also be useful, however: “Preferably you actually need your engagement with the textual content to so grip your middle that preaching is the overflow of what it’s doing in you. … That’s now not actually one thing I am getting from studying somebody else’s sermon notes in keeping with se, however that’s what the textual content does in me.” (He additionally says he’s had a scholar pontificate a sermon he identified as coming from in different places: “And he were given a failing grade for that.”)
Kevin DeYoung teaches pastoral theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and serves because the pastor of Christ Covenant Church, a Presbyterian Church in The united states congregation in Matthews, N.C. DeYoung says a proliferation of on-line voices can put drive on pastors and make them suppose: “You recognize who actually has affect? It’s the podcasters and the bloggers and the authors and the folk talking at those different meetings.” Once in a while, he says, that could be true.
However DeYoung says that fact must lead native congregants to bear in mind the significance of the pastor God has given them: “Are you, to start with, being formed via the trustworthy preaching of your native pastor, whether or not he has 10 items or two?”
York says he discovered a very long time in the past that his congregation at Dollar Run Baptist Church can concentrate to raised preachers than him on-line. “However that’s why I emphasize shepherding,” he says. “None of the ones guys can shepherd my other people.”
Strolling thru sorrows and joys along with his congregation is helping him write his sermons with congregants in thoughts, and he tries to use the messages in some way that “it’s touchdown the place they are living,” he says. “And guy, that’s simply the enjoyment of pastoring. There’s not anything find it irresistible.”
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Jamie is nationwide editor of WORLD Mag. She is a Global Journalism Institute graduate and in the past labored for The Charlotte Global. Jamie has lined politics, failures, faith, and extra for WORLD. She is living in Charlotte, N.C.
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