Questions for Teachers and Preachers

[Nicholas25]

I am a teacher, not a preacher. I would never use a lesson from someone else word for word. I simply read and get on the net and get ideas and maybe Bible verses. This Sunday morning prayer is one of the things I am going to be teaching on. I read on the net were someone said prayer is being one with God so i am going to use it. Is any of the stuff I have posted wrong? Don't misunderstand, I spend a lot of time studying on my own.

 

[shannonL]

Nick,
Gathering resources etc... Is by no means wrong. IT is essential to good preparation. Yet copying sermons because you don't like preparation or you lack self confidence in the teaching abilities God gave you along with lacking confidence in the Holy Spirit is a different story.

I don't know how old you are. I'm in my late,late 30's . I'm finding more and more if you want to find answers to some ethical questions that line up with Scripture then your going to have to go back a generation or two to find those answers. Todays hot-dog preacher boys or whatever you want to call them . Well they base their philosophy of ministry, on pragamatism more than Scripture. Not all but most.
IF your going to read anything meaty and not touchy,feely, how to do this blah blah. Then your going to have to rely on older authors for the most part.
You can't sell christianity like a patented formula for a stain remover etc... Yet that is the mentality of most of today's up and coming preacher boys. So to them "Hey copying is no big deal" . It is better to be effective than original. Which they should really say "I'm to lazy and to scared that God won't come through for me this Sunday if I rely on the H.Spirit alone. So I better cover myself and go with a sure thing.

 

[Hope of Glory]

Preaching another man's sermon verbatim

I don't think that anyone here has stated that they use anything verbatim.

But, I give people permission to use mine. The ones who have (that I am aware of) have taken some of my points, some of my examples, or my outline and have used them in their own way. In no way do I consider it plagiarism.

Now, if they copied them word for word and put their name to it, then that would be plagiarism.

 

[Petrel]

I see I didn't say it on this thread, but in the other thread I pointed out that it isn't just using a person's exact wording that counts as plagiarism, it's using their train of thought. If you use an outline or set of points from someone else and don't add a significant amount of development that counts as plagiarism as well.

Probably it is best if pastors note their sources, don't take things word-for-word, and make sure to come up with a significant amount of the sermon on their own. That way they can be sure that they aren't just patching together other people's work and will be able to give sources if any of the congregation who are interested.

 

[tinytim]

I have heard, and am curious to know, that once I preach a sermon in a church where i pastor, the sermon becomes the property of the church since I am a paid "employee"

Is this true? And if it is, how does this play into the whole question?

 

[Mike McK]

Originally posted by Nicholas25:
1. How do you decide what lesson or message the Lord wants you to give?

I was a teacher at my last church. Typically, we would have a standardized lesson plan, but, depending on the lesson or the teacher, some were allowed to deviate from it.

Fortunately, I had been there long enough that they knew me and knew I wouldn't do anything off the wall, so they let me improvise a little.

I always tried to tie my lessons in with something that we were going through as a body, or some current event (such as a series on integrity during the Clinton impeachment and things like that), or a series that the pastor was teaching.

2. Do you get ideas from sources such as the net?

Sometimes. I've based lessons on threads I've been involved with on different message boards.

3. Have you ever taught or preached on a message you heard someone else use because you liked it?

There isn't a preacher alive who hasn't ripped off another preacher at some point or another.

Hey, if it's a good sermon, then it bears repeating.

As a musician, I can justify it by saying that I'm not actually "plagiarizing" their lesson, I'm doing a cover version of their lesson.

[/quote]4. Do you feel the Lord blesses and helps you through lessons or messages that aren't what he had for you but maybe you just failed to get or understand what he had for you? [/QUOTE]

Naturally, we're shooting for obedience, but we do get it wrong sometimes.

I think the most important thing to remember in times like these is that God's word never comes back void.

Way back when I was a new Christian, somebody got the bright idea to let me lead a Bible study. Looking back on it now, I can't imagine what was going through their minds, but I'm sure they meant well.

I didn't know the Bible at all. I didn't know how to put a lesson together. I didn't know anything. I didn't even know enough to know that I didn't know anything.

It was, as you've probably figured out, a train wreck. There I was, flop sweat stinging my eyes, reeling off a bunch of bumper sticker platitudes and Bible verses hopelessly out of context.

It was so painful and so humiliating, I just got into my car and drove around for about four hours.

About three or four years went by and I got over myself. I even learned to laugh about it.

Now, this is three or four years later and I went back to this church. Wouldn't you know that somebody came up to me and said, "Hey, you remember that night in Jeff's apartment where you did that Bible study? I just wanted to say thanks. That really helped me a lot."

That was one of those things where you just know that it wasn't in your own strength, but God coming along to pick up the pieces and make something good out of them.

Now that I have twenty years of experience and Bible study under my belt, I do think that I've become a pretty good teacher, but I'd be fooling myself if I didn't think that God is still there behind me, chuckling to Himself, as He uses my mistakes in spite of me, much more often than I realize.

 

[whatever]

Originally posted by tinytim:
I have heard, and am curious to know, that once I preach a sermon in a church where i pastor, the sermon becomes the property of the church since I am a paid "employee"

Is this true? And if it is, how does this play into the whole question?

I have never heard of that. Of course that does not mean that it is not true. Was it the pulpit committee who told you that, just in case you write a book and become famous? (By the way, congrats on the new position.)

 

[shannonL]

whatever,

Now that was funny. I got a chuckle on that one. I guess because it sounds like something some church would do.

 

[tinytim]

No it was my current pastor...
It sorta makes sense.

 

[bapmom]

I was thinking about this more, and to me sermons and Bible lessons are different than, say, an original concept put forth by some scientist. It is all Bible (hopefully), and as has been said, the only originator of the thoughts is God, not man.

From the "original" teacher's point of view, I would say it would be wrong for the teacher to try to ENFORCE any kind of "copyright" on his lesson or sermon plan. Can you imagine if the Apostle Paul had written his epistles to the individual churches, and then demanded that they not copy them and pass them around to other churches without giving him some sort of accolade?

From the "secondary" or "learner" point of view, I have many times heard preachers give sources for where they got their way of thinking on this passage.....such as saying they were at a conference and another preacher said it this way, or they were reading through Spurgeon's sermons and found it put that way, etc.

But since it is the Holy Spirit who is applying each truth to each heart, it is essentially given us anew by God (the understanding, I mean).

I just don't think we can compare this issue to the sort of copyright that would exist over a fictional story idea, or a novel line of study in science.

 

[Aaron]

I have 2000 sermon outlines by John Richie, and one or two other sermon outline books. The outlines are provided as helps, but only the framework is provided. You have to develop the points.

They're a great help on occassion.

 

[Mexdeaf]

For my sermons, I milk a lot of cows but always make my own cream.

 

[PastorSBC1303]

Originally posted by tinytim:
I have heard, and am curious to know, that once I preach a sermon in a church where i pastor, the sermon becomes the property of the church since I am a paid "employee"

Is this true? And if it is, how does this play into the whole question?

I have never heard this. I think the sermon is yours, not the property of the church in any way.