One In Jesus

From Perry Noble, Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina,

What are some signs that you are not healthy?

#1 – You cannot remember the last time you clearly heard the Word of God speak to you about an issue in your own life.

#2 – You no longer use the Bible to learn more about Jesus and hear His voice…you are simply using it to find your next sermon.

#3 – You actually begin to hate and despise the people in your church (who, by the way, are the very people you are called to love!)

#4 – You spend more time on the cell phone and computer when you are at home than you do with your own family.

#5 – You are so obsessed with pleasing people and putting out fires that listening to God and doing what He says is no longer the goal of your life and ministry.

For 6 through 10, go to his site.

I’m not a minister or the son of a minister. And I’ve never been a professional minister. But people put such high expectations on ministers (and ministers put such high expectations on ministers) that many are among the walking wounded — if not the walking dead.

The first step in the cure is, of course diagnosis. What are the signs that a minister needs to take a sabbatical, get help, seek counseling ….?

A reader asked me what I think about a preacher using sermon outlines, stories, and examples from published material by another — with permission but without attribution. In other words, what if your preacher routinely preaches using someone else’s material and give no credit for the other person’s work — but with permission?

There’s no violation of the copyright laws, because the preacher has permission not only to use the material but to use it without attribution. There’s no sin against the original author.

But the preacher is certainly passing off someone else’s work as his own. Is that wrong? Unethical?

By way of background, preachers have been publishing sermon outlines nearly as long as there’ve been printing presses. Some of the great preachers in history have published books of sermons and some have published outlines to serve as aids to other preachers.

Nowadays, the Internet makes this sort of thing all the easier, as outlines can be less than a week old, and some come from truly excellent preachers.

The copyright notices generally give the right to use for non-commercial purposes but say nothing about attribution. They generally encourage the use of the outlines in the reader’s own sermon preparation.

Now, all preachers use commentaries and similar resources, and many use joke books and books of illustrations, which are sold for just that purpose. But is there a line where the use of preparation materials — which most would consider proper and even expected — becomes dishonest, plagiarism, or unfair to the congregation?