Sermon Central and A Pastors Integrity
Text: Exodus 20:15
By: Ken McKinley
There is a great site on the WWW called Sermon Central. What it is – is a social network of pastors who post sermons, sermon outlines, Bible studies and illustrations. To me the site has been an enormous blessing as it has allowed me to read the sermons of many great and wonderful pastors, to see how they approach the Word of God, and to thereby grow. But over the last few months I’ve heard stories, time and time again, about how such and such church has found that their pastor was getting his sermon from the internet, and not taking the time to study out God’s Word.
I see two sides to this. For one, there is nothing new under the sun. God’s Word has been preached over and over again for centuries. In seminary we often read great works from great men such as Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, etc… and no doubt we “borrow” from these giants of the Christian faith, even if we are unaware of it. But I think that traditionally we have also cited our work. I know that I for example will often say something like, “Calvin in his Commentaries said thus,” or “Martin Luther once said…” or, “I believe it was St. Augustine that said such and such.” And so a quick citation is used and we go on with our sermon. In a sense it adds credibility to what we are saying when we as pastors can find agreement with the historical positions of the teachings of men of faith who have gone on before us.
But from what I can tell – from listening to people, is that the problem lies not in borrowing something to shore up our point, but in taking an entire sermon and then claiming it is our own without ever giving any credit to the original speaker.
Being a pastor; I fully understand that pastors are busy, but I also understand that the congregation has entrusted the pastor to search the Scriptures in order to find God’s message to them, and if they learn that the pastor has used another pastors message for another congregation, then they very well may be upset, and rightfully so. No one likes “re-gifting” (to borrow a term from popular culture).
And so in this short study I want to look at how we as pastors can use the sermons of others without compromising our integrity.
1st Cite your sources.
This is one of the first things I learned in undergraduate school. I was a history major and every semester we were told, plagiarism will result in an automatic failure of the course and possible suspension from the university. We as pastors should be used to doing this anyway when we cit passage and verse from the Bible, we also use various study tools and resources gleaned from others (which is what Sermon Central is), and so when we do borrow we should inform the congregation less they feel betrayed or shorted in some manner.
It’s helpful to know what your congregation expects from you as a pastor. Before I was hired on at my current church I asked the board what they expected from the pastor, what they expected as far as preaching went, and I even asked how they felt about my using study resources other than the Bible. Granted I would wager that most congregations have never taken the time to think this out thoroughly, as they don’t realize that much of our preaching is shaped by our seminary experience, and the resources we obtained while in seminary. For me personally, most of my congregation has never taken the time to read Calvin’s Commentaries, or Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God, or City of God. They may have read some of C.S. Lewis’ works, but probably not his lesser known stuff (ie. God in the Dock or The Abolition of Man). And so it may be helpful and beneficial to explain to your congregation what goes into sermon preparation, and the resources you use. So include your congregation and seek their support in this matter.
There are several ways we could cite the works we use in our sermons. We could make mention of it during the actual sermon (as the examples I have given above). Or we could put a note in the church bulletin.
Examples:
1. Today Pastor McKinley will be preaching Jonathan Edwards famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God.”
2. The outline for today’s sermon is based on John Pipers sermon “If My Words Abide in You.”
Or as pastors we can announce our resources at the beginning of the sermon. I recently posted a sermon to Sermon Central in which I give credit for the inspiration of the sermon to Mark Dever and his teachings on expository preaching and his 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.
2nd Check Your Motives
Make sure you are using these resources for a good reason. If you are borrowing sermons from someone because you believe that it is relevant to your congregation and will speak to them, equip them, and facilitate growth in your congregation, then these are noble reasons. If you are borrowing because you were too preoccupied to adequately prepare a sermon then this motivation is at best questionable. An emergency is one thing; lack of discipline is another all together. Lacking discipline and laziness are not traits becoming of a pastor (if you can’t say amen, then say oh my).
I will readily confess that I am the embodiment of the absent minded professor (or should I say pastor). If not for my wife keeping my head on straight, a planner, and multitudes of post it notes, I would be a mess. But the point is, I know this about myself and thus make sure that I tell my wife things, write in my planner, and use post it notes like a mad man, so that I do not neglect what is required of my position. Doing this I am able to devote the time needed to adequately prepare a sermon.
However; there have been times in my ministry when something unexpected came up and I was not able to come up with a sermon. What I’ve found is that if I’m open and honest with my congregation and I explain what has occurred they have no problem with me pulling an old sermon from my file, or using one of the great sermons of the past that is applicable to them today. And it has been my experience that in the long run a congregation will appreciate your honesty, integrity and character even more so than your preaching ability.
Are you using another’s sermons because you feel inadequate? You must ask yourself why you are so concerned with others views of yourself? One of the great problems I see within the church today is that many pastors want to be the leader of the next mega-church, and so they use their current church as a stepping stone. “I’ll preach here for awhile until the opportunity presents itself for me to move up in the world.”
Please remember that God calls us not always as a means of promoting us, but to preach His Word to His people, be it in a small country church or in a 20,000 + member mega-church. We would also do well to remember that ours is the greater judgment (See James chapter 3 verse 1).
3rd Make Sure it’s Right for Your Congregation
Even when we use another’s book, study guide, or sermon – we as pastors still have the responsibility to prayerfully consider what we are preaching. We should carefully and prayerfully meditate over the text to ensure we properly understand it. We should be aware of the context, the meaning, the message and the application. Otherwise we are simply parroting. The preacher of the Word of God, only has authority as a messenger of the Lord as long as he is preaching the Word of God as it was intended. And so even in using another’s sermon, or book, or other resources we must ensure that those resources are doctrinally sound. And being that we are speaking God’s Word to His people we must take the utmost care to ensure that we are presenting it in the way that God desire us to.
I am a pastor in a small church in Oklahoma, and as much as I admire and enjoy the sermons of men like Alistair Begg, John Piper, Mark Dever, RC Sproul, and others most of those men are what we here in Oklahoma would call “Yankees.” There is no doubt that they (and others) are preaching the Word of God, but is it the Word that MY congregation needs to hear on a particular Sunday. Granted; some of those men have been in ministry for so long I could probably find a sermon that they have preached in the past that would address what my congregation is going through, but again it is a matter of Christian ethics.
As pastors we are under-shepherds of a local flock. We are to lead them in a specific direction, and that direction is going to be based on our own ethics and integrity, whether we want it to be or not.
CLOSING
