Editor’s Note: Before coming to Lakepointe Church, Josh Howerton was the Senior Pastor of The Bridge Church in Nashville, TN for 10 years. After graduating from Union University with a degree in Theological Studies, he attended Southern Seminary. Josh is married to Jana, who he met on a blind date, and together they have three children – Eliana, Felicity Hope, and Hudson. Josh’s life passion is to make disciples, train church leaders, and plant churches. You can follow Josh on Twitter @HowertonJosh.
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JOSH HOWERTON ON SERMON PLAGIARISM (RANDOM THOUGHTS)
Ok, I’ll bite on being the dissenter in the “sermon plagiarism” convo. Will probably get canceled and have to mute this in 3, 2, 1…
Because they have a heart to help, almost every pastor tells other pastors to use anything from his sermons that’ll help them.
“If my bullet fits in your gun, shoot it!”: I’ve heard Adrian Rodgers, JD Greear, Craig Groeschel, Chris Hodges, Bob Russell, Rick Warren, etc all say this.
A church-sermon is not an academia-dissertation or a book/journalism-publication. We’re not preaching to make ourselves look good, sound smart, or sell something proprietary.
We’re preaching for life-change and to grow the kingdom.
“BUT THAT'S STEALING!”
If I gave them permission to use anything from my notes that would help them, that’s not stealing. It is stealing in book, journalism, and academic publication, because those things are zero-sum situations whose goal is revenue...
Author X says something in a book, that's the only place you can get that info, and is selling that book for income. So if Author Y also says it, that takes away Author X’s books sales and income. There's no permission, it's zero-sum, and for-profit.
Sermons are different...
Church planter X using my sermons A) has my permission, B) it diminishes me in no way, and C) actually serves to advance my original purpose in writing the sermon – to help people and grow the kingdom.
“BUT THAT'S LYING!
They’re passing off your information as if it’s their own.”
To this I say “lol” and "haha"
Guys, stop and think for a sec...
PASTORS ARE TEACHERS.
In school 0% of people assume everything their teacher says is their teacher's 100% original thought and they didn’t get it from anywhere else. In fact, teachers are GIVEN lesson plans and TOLD to use them as starting points of presentation.
Nobody hears a teacher finish teaching a lesson and says, “Step down IMMEDIATELY bc you didn’t cite the lesson plan you got that from!” Nobody hears a grammar teacher say, “I before E except after C” and says, “Fire him, he didn’t attribute!”...
No one sees a physics teacher do an experiment & calls for his dismissal b/c he didn’t mention where he first saw that object lesson. Why?
When teachers teach, people assume they’re pulling from whatever research / info sources they can to best help the students, which is the goal.
Because “there’s nothing new under the sun” and we’ve all been preaching the same Bible for 2000 years, it is a given that pastors draw from one another - illustrations, points, sayings, structure, etc - whatever BEST HELPS the people they’re teaching.
“BUT PASTORS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING THEIR OWN WORD FROM GOD FOR THEIR CHURCH!”
They are! That happens through the research process, not apart from it. Just like in commentaries, books, lectures, and articles, sometimes I’ll hear something in a sermon and think, “Yeah, that’s a word for our church right now,” think the Spirit wants me to deliver it, and I’ll use an illustration or a way of explaining a passage.
That is "a word in season" that happened through research, not individual inspiration.
Not gonna go here, but if you REALLY wanna get salty, know who didn’t always cite sources? Bible writers. Gospel writers & others borrow liberally from the OT, sometimes citing, often just saying w/o citing because in preaching what really matters is that people are helped w/ the truth.
All that to say, in the words of Pastor James Merritt: “If someone borrows liberally from one of my sermons and somebody gets saved because of it, I have an investment in it gladly.”
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