A reminder ...

[Deborah13]

Deborah,

I see the issue as laziness by the pastor and elder whose example I gave. I know that preparing sermons (and I don't do it full time) is a time consuming job when one starts from scratch. I find it to be an excuse for doing necessary exegetical and homiletical work when a pastor takes his sermons from Sermon Central or purchases one from Rick Warren.

Well, you can say that because you have had that responsibility. I have never written a sermon so I have no knowledge of that.

 

[Obadiah]

Obadiah,

However, the issue is deliberately stealing somebody else's material without giving credit - plagiarism.

I was addressing a particular point made by another member, not condoning plagiarism. As I'm sure you are aware, legally purchasing material to be used in a sermon (where this is not prohibited) is not plagiarism.

 

[reba]

Been trying to write something about this site not looking to sue anyone .. Just having members post the links which many other sites/books ask for... to keep us from being sued..
some thing like this...
Copyright Policy: While all of the material on the GotQuestions.org website is under copyright protection, the only purpose of our copyright is to make sure people copy it right. As long as you always clearly reference and/or link to www.gotquestions.org as the source of the material, you have our permission to copy, print, and distribute our material.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/about.html#ixzz2rZHVKTin

 

[Obadiah]

Deborah,

I see the issue as laziness by the pastor and elder whose example I gave. I know that preparing sermons (and I don't do it full time) is a time consuming job when one starts from scratch. I find it to be an excuse for doing necessary exegetical and homiletical work when a pastor takes his sermons from Sermon Central or purchases one from Rick Warren.

I agree if someone uses that for their entire sermon and does it all the time, that seems more like laziness than following God's leading. But if you did this full time you would soon realize how hard it is to consistently come up with your own fresh original material for a sermon every week, Sunday after Sunday, never using anyone else's material. Especially when you consider that the sermon is only a small part of what a pastor has to do week in and week out when they are doing it full time. Their really is only so much time in a day, and most pastors have the same family and personal responsibilities that everyone else has. Being a pastor in now way relieves them of these other responsibilities.

 

[Deborah13]

I never took a day off, but it was covered in my contract and I would have been paid for it.

Ok, you had a contract that provided you with paid days off. But that wasn't my point so I'll try it again.
ie.
I have been paid to do a project, I hire a subcontractor to do the work. Do I charge the client again for the subcontractor doing the work, that I was paid to do? That would be dishonest and would not fly with the client.

 

[Deborah13]

Been trying to write something about this site not looking to sue anyone .. Just having members post the links which many other sites/books ask for... to keep us from being sued..
some thing like this...
Copyright Policy: While all of the material on the GotQuestions.org website is under copyright protection, the only purpose of our copyright is to make sure people copy it right. As long as you always clearly reference and/or link to www.gotquestions.org as the source of the material, you have our permission to copy, print, and distribute our material.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/about.html#ixzz2rZHVKTin

Nice.

 

[Deborah13]

Especially when you consider that the sermon is only a small part of what a pastor has to do week in and week out when they are doing it full time.

What are all the things your pastor had to do? How large a church?

 

[OzSpen]

I agree if someone uses that for their entire sermon and does it all the time, that seems more like laziness than following God's leading. But if you did this full time you would soon realize how hard it is to consistently come up with your own fresh original material for a sermon every week, Sunday after Sunday, never using anyone else's material. Especially when you consider that the sermon is only a small part of what a pastor has to do week in and week out when they are doing it full time. Their really is only so much time in a day, and most pastors have the same family and personal responsibilities that everyone else has. Being a pastor in now way relieves them of these other responsibilities.

Obadiah,

I'm not a theorist. I have done this full-time. I'm an ordained Christian minister and have pastored churches. I know what it is like to be a full time pastor and have to preach twice a Sunday and even lead a mid-week Bible study.

This is where I disagree with you. It is NOT hard to consistently come up with my own fresh original material for a sermon. I'm an expository preacher who sometimes deals with topical sermons (depending on the issues in my society, church and denomination). When I pastored a church in our capital city of Canberra, a local member of parliament was pushing for euthanasia to be legislated. I debated him in a public auditorium that attracted 500 people to the debate. It was necessary to become topical on that subject at that point. I've preached on abortion, baptism, illicit drugs, marriage & family, homosexuality, promiscuity, 'Conned by the condom', biblical authority, free will or determinism, etc.

I highly recommend Bryan Chapell's expository preaching text, Christ-Centered Preaching (Baker 2005): http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/christ-centered-preaching-2nd-edition/143610. It's the finest text and course I've ever taken on how to preach relevant, Christ-centered, expository sermons. And you'll NEVER run out of sermon material if you preach from Genesis to Revelation. I recommend alternating Old and New Testament books in a preaching roster.

In Christ,
Oz

 

[Obadiah]

Obadiah,

I'm not a theorist. I have done this full-time. I'm an ordained Christian minister and have pastored churches. I know what it is like to be a full time pastor and have to preach twice a Sunday and even lead a mid-week Bible study.

This is where I disagree with you. It is NOT hard to consistently come up with my own fresh original material for a sermon. I'm an expository preacher who sometimes deals with topical sermons (depending on the issues in my society, church and denomination). When I pastored a church in our capital city of Canberra, a local member of parliament was pushing for euthanasia to be legislated. I debated him in a public auditorium that attracted 500 people to the debate. It was necessary to become topical on that subject at that point. I've preached on abortion, baptism, illicit drugs, marriage & family, homosexuality, promiscuity, 'Conned by the condom', biblical authority, free will or determinism, etc.

I highly recommend Bryan Chapell's expository preaching text, Christ-Centered Preaching (Baker 2005): http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/christ-centered-preaching-2nd-edition/143610. It's the finest text and course I've ever taken on how to preach relevant, Christ-centered, expository sermons. And you'll NEVER run out of sermon material if you preach from Genesis to Revelation. I recommend alternating Old and New Testament books in a preaching roster.

In Christ,
Oz

Well, I've never done it full time and only worked with youth, not an entire congregation, so you have a lot more knowledge of that than I do. All I know is that the pastors I've worked closely with have all talked about how after a certain amount of time they find it very hard to come up with new and fresh material that is still relevant to the congregation.

 

[Obadiah]

Ok, you had a contract that provided you with paid days off. But that wasn't my point so I'll try it again.
ie.
I have been paid to do a project, I hire a subcontractor to do the work. Do I charge the client again for the subcontractor doing the work, that I was paid to do? That would be dishonest and would not fly with the client.

I must have misunderstood you then. I thought you specifically asked me what would happen had I not been able to come in and they had to pay someone else to take my place. I didn't really have paid days off. It was just a contingency plan for what they would do if I was ever not able to make it for some reason. Probably more like paid sick leave than paid days off.

I think the subject had been a pastor using the churches money for buying materials to use in his sermons. I really don't think that compares to a contractor hiring sub-contractors. It's much more like if you work in an office, are you normally expected to purchase your own office supplies out of your own paycheck that you use to do the job you are paid to do? Or does the company normally purchase the paper, printers, pens, books, etc that you use? It all comes down to the agreement, and I can't for the life of me figure out what is wrong if a church agrees to set aside money for these things and the pastor uses that money the church agreed to for the things it was set aside for. I just can't understand why that's a problem. I don't think anyone here was talking about a pastor that was stealing money from the church for this. Every church I know of has people who oversee that, and all money coming out of the church treasury has to be accounted for, just as it would in any business or other organization. They would know if he was buying things they hadn't agreed to! If he was expected to pay for these things out of his own pocket, there would be a stipulation in his contract that he is being paid a certain amount of money for this and there would be stipulations as to whether he was allowed to keep that money if he didn't spend it on the things specified or not. Not only is this necessary for tax purposes, but it is also necessary for the employment contract to be in good faith.

 

[Deborah13]

First, whatever the church as agreed to, is their business. That is the arrangement that they have made.
And no, no one was saying anyone was stealing, not even me. It has nothing to do with stealing.
Except in this case, he wasn't giving credit to the true authors of the sermons and that is a problem.

I think the subject had been a pastor using the churches money for buying materials to use in his sermons. I really don't think that compares to a contractor hiring sub-contractors. It's much more like if you work in an office, are you normally expected to purchase your own office supplies

An office worker gets paid for their work, not someone else's work.
Providing the sermon is not providing materials to write a sermon. Writing the sermon is the work.
I could use the example of an author paying a ghost writer to write their book, but I'll just stop here. We just don't have the same point of view. :nod

 

[OzSpen]

Well, I've never done it full time and only worked with youth, not an entire congregation, so you have a lot more knowledge of that than I do. All I know is that the pastors I've worked closely with have all talked about how after a certain amount of time they find it very hard to come up with new and fresh material that is still relevant to the congregation.

I would suspect that is because they are mainly topical preachers. Second Timothy 4:2 (NLT) states: 'Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching'. Seems to me that 'preach the word of God' has a lot in common with expository preaching. I guess it's possible to do that topically, but it makes for a more challenging attempt at preaching the word. When I preach topically, I sometimes struggle to get an orderly outline that will continue to maintain people's attention.

For the expository preacher, there is an excellent resource in Frank E Gaebelein (gen ed) 1979ff. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House. It's a 12 vol series that covers from Genesis to Revelation. It is available free online from StudyLight.org.

Oz

 

[brother Paul]

Imagine, one Christian organization suing another.

That's because they are a "business" not really about Christ....(though many there are Christians)...Zondervan has also sued other Christian organizations on similar grounds....money and personal vain glory rules in the world!

 

[OzSpen]

That's because they are a "business" not really about Christ....(though many there are Christians)...Zondervan has also sued other Christian organizations on similar grounds....money and personal vain glory rules in the world!

Zondervan has not been owned by Christians since 1988 when it was purchased by HarperCollins, a division of News Corp (Rupert Murdoch). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zondervan

 

[jasonc]

which has the umbrella over fox news.

 

[Deborah13]

Zondervan has not been owned by Christians since 1988 when it was purchased by HarperCollins, a division of News Corp (Rupert Murdoch). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zondervan

They also bought 50% of Thomas Nelson.

 

[jasonc]

lovely more "Christian merchandising" I understand some of the reason for copyrighting as well if I ministry has a symbol and it splits(churches) and its symbol is now part of some false movement and they are associated with that symbol who should change?

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Zondervan has not been owned by Christians since 1988 when it was purchased by HarperCollins, a division of News Corp (Rupert Murdoch). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zondervan

My oh my, and all this time I've been putting money in Rupert Murdoch's pocket and I never knew it.

 

[OzSpen]

which has the umbrella over fox news.

The Fox network is owned by News Corp and that includes more than just Fox News. It's the whole Fox organisation. It's a monstrous media conglomerate.

 

[OzSpen]

They also bought 50% of Thomas Nelson.

According to this article from The Wall Street Journal in 2011, 'HarperCollins Acquires Religion Book Publisher', http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203707504577010283227448426, HarperCollins (News Corp) bought all of Thomas Nelson. Also, The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp.