Some Convictions Regarding Preaching in Church Plants
*Warning: this may hurt some feelings. That is not my intent. I am going to share a burden and conviction I hold, and the nature of burdens and convictions are that they may offend those who don’t share them. Let’s respect each other where we disagree.
When I became a follower of Jesus at the age to 28 I was working as a bartender. Every weekend we had bands come in and play. Rarely would they ever play songs that they themselves had written because they were cover bands. When people came to see the bands they knew exactly what they were getting. They were going to see a group performing other musicians songs.
There is a something similar that happens in the church today, and it is especially prevalent in the church planting world. Much like a cover band, there are a growing number of pastors who are performing another bands song, that is, they are preaching another pastor’s sermon.
A few years ago I was reunited with a good friend who was an important part of one of our earlier church plants. We had sent him out of our church plant as a missionary with Wycliff Bible Translators. We were talking about his transition, and his experience in trying find a new church home.
He was surprised to find that as he was visiting various churches that they were preaching through the exact same sermon series, right down to the same graphics packages. I will never forget what he said to me that day. “Don’t these pastor’s realize that some of us know that they are buying their sermons off of the internet, and that it cheapens what they are trying to do?”
My friend had visited two different churches that had purchased, and were preaching through the exact same sermon series. In both circumstances the men preaching the sermons presented the material as if it was their own.
I have also had the experience of sitting through sermons that were downloaded off of the internet and presented to a church body as if they were the original work of the speaker on the stage. On a few of occasions I actually downloaded the sermons my self on my phone and I curiously followed along as the sermon progressed.
This practice is far more prevalent than most people realize. While this is a common practice, what is not common is for the proper credit being given to the original authors of those sermons. In the world of journalism, and book writing this practice is known as plagiarism, but for some reason we seem to accept it in the realm of preaching sermons.
I want to share with you 3 reasons why I believe this is wrong and needs to stop:
1. IT IS DECEPTIVE:
When you stand up before a group of people to speak/teach/lead the people listening to you believe that what you are presenting is your own material unless told otherwise. When you fail to give credit to the original author of the material you are presenting you are plagiarizing.
As I followed along with one sermon I was listening to I heard the pastor say, “this is a tough one to figure out so this week I searched through 9 commentaries to discover the answer and here is what I found.” I looked down at the pdf file of the sermon I downloaded and read word for word the same thing that the speaker had just said. Now you can probably see why this is a problem in this particular case, and also in general.
The speaker in this circumstance just lied to the entire group that he was speaking to that day. He did not actually search through 9 commentaries, and he did not discover the answer. Somebody else did that, but as far as everyone in the room that day believed the speaker did. Whether intentional or not he deceived the people he is called to lead in the truth. When speakers present material that is not their own, and fail to acknowledge it they discredit themselves, and the message that they proclaim, because the way something is done is as important as what is done.
2. IT MINIMIZES SERMON IMPACT
Preaching a sermon that was prepared by someone else allows someone else to do your learning for you, and therefore minimizes the power and conviction with which a sermon is meant to be delivered. Power and conviction comes through a personal encounter with God through the Scriptures. When you take the shortcut of preaching another person’s sermon you empty the preaching process of its greatest strength. That strength is a man speaking with power, conviction, and authority that can only come from engaging with the Lord personally through the sermon preparation process.
Preaching someone else’s sermon is like engaging in a version of the old telephone game we played as children. You would whisper something into another person’s ear and they would in turn whisper it into the next person’s ear, down the line it went. By the time you got to the end of the line and that person spoke out the words they were told they scarcely resemble the original words spoken.
Now I realize that this my be stretching my point a bit, but there is an element of truth with this. My point is to illustrate the difference between first-hand revelation, and second-hand revelation. First-hand revelation occurs when there is direct engagement with The Lord through the Scriptures. Second-hand revelation occurs when there is indirect engagement with the Lord through the Scriptures. Preaching a sermon that someone else wrote is second-hand revelation at best, and laziness and sinful at its worst.
3. IF/WHEN DISCOVERED IT CAN PUSH PEOPLE AWAY FROM JESUS
James writes, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” (James 3:1) One of the reasons for this warning is that the people we teach look to us with trusting eyes to lead them to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is, what he has done, and why it matters. As they do that a special relationship develops and people in the church look to their leaders for guidance.
When plagiarism is discovered it violates a sacred trust. That violation of trust can lead to some people disengaging from the church. It causes all kinds of turmoil in the church as loyalties are tested and relationships are strained. I know someone who was recently terminated from his position as a local church pastor because of plagiarism. It cause a great disruption in the mission of the church to advance the gospel.
In some cases the violation of trust causes people to walk away from Jesus altogether. While the plagiarism is probably not the only cause it certainly can become the nail in the coffin for some people. I have had dozens of evangelistic conversations with people who had once been a part of a church and an event like this has caused them to walk away. They reason that if a pastor can flat out lie and misrepresent himself to so many people then what does that say about the truth claims of our faith.
These are just three of many reasons why you should not preach another’s sermons and pass them off as your own. We need people to preach from their own personal encounter with Jesus and his word. I want to believe that the men who are plagiarizing other’s sermons have good intentions, but at the heart of it is a dangerous idolatry that needs to be rooted out and properly dealt with. Our proclamation needs to be the overflow of our own intimacy with God. A mediocre sermon that is truly from you is better than an eloquent sermon that is merely secondary revelation.