Representation by way of Krieg Barrie
The primary time Scott Gibson heard a minister plagiarizing subject material in a sermon, Gibson was once a youngster and the preacher was once his pastor.
Gibson was once a brand new Christian and an ordinary player in a weekly e-book crew at his church. All over a Sunday morning sermon, because the church’s pastor recounted a non-public enjoy from the former week, Gibson says the tale sounded acquainted: “It was once immediately out of the e-book.”
Some other member of the studying crew 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 enjoy 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 instances a 12 months from contributors of church buildings dealing with a equivalent catch 22 situation: Their pastor has been plagiarizing too. What will have to they do?
Gibson thinks the issue is extra not unusual than some notice however says church buildings regularly don’t take into accounts it till after a disaster moves: “That is simply no longer one thing other people need to discuss.”
Plagiarism isn’t a brand new drawback, however a minimum of 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 steer the country’s biggest Protestant denomination, movies circulated on Twitter appearing robust similarities—and from time to time similar 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 no longer crediting Greear when he used parts of his messages.
In a 2019 sermon on Romans 8, for instance, 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 listing. Greear recounts a tale about his driving force’s training trainer stomping an enormous brake at the passenger facet of the auto. Litton tells the similar tale. Greear says that since sin grieves the Holy Spirit, small spaces of compromise are simply as devastating as large ones. Litton says: “Small compromises are simply as nice to the Holy Spirit as nice compromises.”
The sermon controversy has rattled the SBC, nevertheless it’s additionally raised broader questions on how a lot borrowing is an excessive amount of with regards to preaching—specifically when busy pastors have get right of entry to to hundreds of sermons, regularly without cost, however on occasion packaged for a charge. In a sermon-filled market, how will have to pastors hold forth? And the way will have to Christians concentrate?

Internet sites providing sermon-related sources
THERE’S NO SINGLE FORMULA for the way pastors get ready and hold forth sermons. And there’s no loss of sermons to look at or listen on-line. Many church buildings livestream or submit sermons every week for contributors and outsiders, and a few church buildings submit message transcripts as smartly.
Different sermon-related websites marketplace immediately to pastors as a useful resource to seek the advice of as they get ready their very own sermons. On occasion they price a charge. North Level Group Church close to Atlanta gives a ministry useful resource web page devoted to “top rate sermon kits.” The website online says every package comes with “the entire sources you want 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 immediately from the collection” with out written permission from the ministry and that non-public examples from the collection will have to get replaced with suitable examples from the patron.
It’s no longer transparent whether or not the ministry conducts any follow-up to peer if pastors are borrowing an excessive amount of language immediately 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 sources come with message transcripts from Pastor Andy Stanley, speaker notes, audio recordsdata, greater than 100 emblems and different graphics to accompany the messages, and a promotion video. The collection identify: “Higher selections, fewer regrets.”
The web site SermonSearch gives the textual content of pastors’ sermons and descriptions, a database of sermon illustrations, and preaching pointers for a charge, starting from an a l. a. carte acquire of a unmarried sermon for $5.99 to a $149 annual charge that provides get right of entry to to 360 sermons a 12 months. Individuals obtain a royalty for every sermon downloaded, in step with the website online. The sermon manuscripts come with a copyright understand that the database is supposed to “encourage the advance of recent messages.”
The web site is a part of a community of different websites operated by way of Salem Church Merchandise that comes with SermonSpice—a website online with background graphics to accompany worship products and services and sermons. It additionally contains Playback Media, a website online providing “the most productive in mini films, church countdowns, and worship backgrounds.” An outline says: “Phrases on a display screen 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.”
Some other web site, SermonCentral, states its function 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 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 any individual filing plagiarized subject material. It asks customers to recognize the paintings of others of their preaching, nevertheless it additionally acknowledges the inherent boundaries for any website online or church posting sermons: It’s just about unimaginable 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 contributors on the conclusion of the yearly Southern Baptist Conference on June 16. Mark Humphrey/AP
CONSULTING OTHER PASTORS’ sermons isn’t fallacious. Pastors automatically use commentaries and books to review for sermons, and a few say they to find different preachers’ messages useful in that procedure. The Christian find out about tool Emblems contains sermon collections in its suite of Biblical studies sources for acquire.
However questions get up: How can pastors keep away from drawing an excessive amount of subject material from every other sermon or useful resource? What are the criteria for pastoral plagiarism?
Scott Gibson, the Baylor professor and creator of Will have to We Use Any person Else’s Sermon?, gives a easy definition in his e-book: “Plagiarism is kidnapping anyone else’s ideas, phrases, or concepts.” (He notes that the Latin root of the phrase plagiarism way “kidnapper.”)
But if pastors or scholars ask Gibson the best way to know once they’re crossing a line into plagiarism, he as an alternative 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 debate broke over Litton’s sermons in June, the Alabama pastor talked in regards to the homework that is going into writing his sermons. Litton stated he works every week with a preaching crew of 8 males from his church who lend a hand with analysis and brainstorming for his sermon. He stated the crew means lets in him to mentor younger males for ministry and keeps his personal voice younger.
Litton stated he and his preaching crew consulted Greear’s on-line manuscripts regularly all over 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 utility. One stocks the similar identify, and one has a equivalent define.”
“I’m sorry for no longer bringing up J.D.’s generosity and possession of those issues,” Litton wrote. “I will have to 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 trend precedes the Romans collection. By means of early July, Litton’s church had got rid of dozens of sermons relationship prior to 2020. Litton instructed The Washington Occasions that the church was once getting rid of the fabric to arrange for a brand new web site release. The church’s elders launched a remark announcing they got rid of the messages as a result of “other people had been going thru sermons in an try to discredit and malign our pastor.” (Litton later stated in an SBC podcast interview that each causes had been true.)
In the meantime, a minimum of one blogger identified similarities between a sermon at the e-book of Acts that Greear preached in 2013 and a message Litton it appears preached in 2015. The movies display robust similarities between content material, illustrations, and informal jokes.
In his sermon, Greear says some other people consider God sending unsuspecting other people to hell whilst He mumbles in Latin: “difficult 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, ‘difficult cookies.’”
An affiliate pastor at Redemption Church instructed WORLD that Litton was once out of the workplace 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 creating a church useful resource that can outline plagiarism and description the tips the preaching crew will stick with to make sure right kind quotation going ahead.

PASTORS HAVE A RANGE OF IDEAS about how a lot subject material is OK to borrow from every other minister, however many emphasize the significance of bringing up any out of doors supply {that a} preacher quotes from immediately or depends upon closely all over a sermon.
Some have quoted the overdue preacher Adrian Rogers as announcing it was once advantageous 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 in regards to the seriousness of plagiarism, announcing that taking up someone else’s sermon and preaching it as your individual is “at all times and unequivocally fallacious.” He recommended towards the usage of every other sermon’s construction or define in important chunks, however stated in case you do “borrow” you will have to cite the pastor.
Whilst many pastors seek the advice of out of doors resources like commentaries, books, and sermons, some additionally seek the advice of analysis assistants. In an interview, Greear instructed me a analysis assistant on his full-time church group of workers is helping him accumulate find out about subject material as he prepares to write down his sermons. “Rightly using analysis aides way the usage of them to collate that subject material,” he stated. “Wrongly the usage of them way having them write your messages for you.” (Greear posts sermon manuscripts with footnotes on his church’s web site.)
Greear says that greater than a decade in the past he used the products and services of a analysis crew known as the Docent Workforce for roughly a 12 months. The Texas-based group hires researchers with some seminary coaching or levels to lend a hand pastors with sermon analysis. The gang additionally prepares find out about curriculum for congregations and on occasion is helping church buildings habits surveys in their congregation or surrounding communities.
Greear says a Docent researcher most often ready a 30-page report 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 products and services for a few years and in addition stated the gang didn’t write his sermons.
Glenn Lucke, president of Docent, instructed me by way of electronic mail that sermon analysis accounts for roughly part of the gang’s trade. Lucke says Docent supplies citations for any subject material it contains from commentaries, information articles, and different out of doors resources, and says the gang doesn’t write sermons.
Jed Ostoich, a Michigan-based author 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 lend a hand. Ostoich says he would analysis and write a couple of pages of remark at the elder’s sermon textual content and provides ideas on the best way to construct the sermon and practice 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 crew of Docent researchers helping a well known pastor of a big church, most commonly with writing initiatives. Ostoich says he was once 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 trade.
Lucke instructed me that Docent once in a while writes place papers and articles for pastors and different church staffers: “A couple of church buildings have put parts of the thing or place paper on their web sites, which is okay with us.”
Ostoich left Docent a couple of years in the past. He says he’s grown uncomfortable with the theory of a gadget that would permit pastors to make use of other folks’s talents and time to “manufacture a picture or a logo that would no longer exist if just one particular person was once doing it.” However, he provides, “An trade exists as a result of there’s a marketplace for it.”
THAT MARKET DOESN’T MEAN the usage of a analysis assistant is fallacious, however some seminary professors emphasize it’s particularly vital for college kids 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 find out about is vital, and taking note of different sermons will also be useful, however: “Preferably you actually need your engagement with the textual content to so grip your center that preaching is the overflow of what it’s doing in you. … That’s no longer actually one thing I am getting from studying anyone else’s sermon notes in step with se, however that’s what the textual content does in me.” (He additionally says he’s had a scholar hold forth a sermon he known as coming from elsewhere: “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 usa congregation in Matthews, N.C. DeYoung says a proliferation of on-line voices can put force on pastors and make them suppose: “You realize who actually has affect? It’s the podcasters and the bloggers and the authors and the folk talking at those different meetings.” On occasion, he says, that may well be true.
However DeYoung says that truth will have to lead native congregants to bear in mind the significance of the pastor God has given them: “Are you, initially, being formed by way of the devoted preaching of your native pastor, whether or not he has 10 presents or two?”
York says he learned a very long time in the past that his congregation at Greenback Run Baptist Church can concentrate to higher 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 together 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 reside,” 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 up to now labored for The Charlotte Global. Jamie has lined politics, screw ups, faith, and extra for WORLD. She is living in Charlotte, N.C.
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