Guaranteed to put fear in the pastor's heart

You are stopped by one of your church members in the hallway prior to the worship.

They say to you, "Pastor, I think I am going to Google all your sermons."

Your heart may skip a beat, several beats, while your brain churns in search of a response.

"Why would you do that?" you ask.

"To see if anyone is stealing your sermons, pastor."

Should you make some casual comment at this point that pastors sometimes borrow from each other and that anything of yours that another pastor thinks helpful he is welcome to borrow. You cannot think of anything to say other than that but you do have a lot of thoughts far beyond the old standard that preachers swap stories and outlines.

Deep down, you know that if you have someone doing Google searches for your sermon titles and outlines, or even for some sentences and phrases they are going to find out that you "borrow" heavily from others, sometimes sermon titles, complete sermon outlines, numerous sermon illustrations, and even much of a sermon body.

This could be a problem because you have to admit that you are (a) stealing someone else's material, (b) not giving even a hint of attribution, (c) using entire sermons that others have prepared, and (d) even taking another's illustration and telling it as if it is your own.

You've been warned against this.

Your seminary profs told you that you should read widely but study hard and prepare your own sermons. They explained that it was normal to take a sermon idea, even a title, and do your own prep work. They even understood that outlines in the public domain may be used, just give credit.

You started out in the pastoral ministry fully grasping that as a pastor, your most important work was to proclaim God's Word, that God called you and that He would use you to explain and apply His Word to the lives of those whom you touch.

Whatever happened to that?

You got lazy. You foolishly thought that if you preached like a megapastor you could be a megapastor. You started borrowing, then stealing.

Now you have sermon outlines printed every week in the bulletin. You have many sermons that are fully printed and available on your church website as text, podcasts or both. You have that sinking feeling that if this church member assiduously researches your sermons you will be found out.

You haven't been doing a lot of your own work for years. Most of what you preach you found elsewhere. You have justified this by presuming that folks would understand that there are so many demands on the pastor and that you are only responding to the expectations the congregation has placed on you for visiting, meetings, administration, counseling and other duties. Surely they will understand your using other folks' sermon material to save time.

At the level you are stealing from others, they probably will not understand. You get a paycheck every couple of weeks in part for filling the pulpit. If what comes from your mouth when you preach is not yours, what are you? Sort of an ecclesiastical reporter just reading off "your" notes instead of a teleprompter?

You are in serious trouble if this goes much farther. What if the deacons were presented with the facts here? You really don't want to think about that conversation.

You cannot undo the past but you can clean up your act for the present and future.

Stop with the silly rationalizations and do it.

Halleujah! A thoroughly biblical sermon

One of the mild surprises in my nearly eight month pastoral hiatus, during which I have been a visitor in numerous churches for the Sunday morning service, is that far too often there has been something missing from the worship time - a biblical mesage.

This surprises me, since I have been in SBC churches, inerrantists all, save for a Sunday off the reservation at a Presbyterian church  (whose pastor, a friend of mine would make a good Baptist and preached a solid biblical sermon that Sunday).

There have been Sundays where the sermon was jettisioned in favor of music.

There have been Sundays where a patriotic God-and-Country theme meant a perfunctory reading of a single Bible verse followed by 45 minutes of Founding Fathers with Jesus in a cameo appearance.

There have been Sundays where it seemed that if the pastor got red-faced and apopleptic and screamed a lot, that was supposed to be preaching. It wasn't.

There have been Sundays when the idea seemed to be to declare the glories of some of our denominational programs.

There have been a Sundays where I just wasn't sure what was being preached.

And there have been many Sundays where the sermon was biblical, solid, and preached well.

This past Sunday I worshipped in a rather high-church fashion. Music was good, though sedate. Any hymn with a Brahms symphony (the fourth, I believe) for the music is a hit with me. OK, I cannot recall singing the Gloria Patri lately, although the Doxology (not the one whose tune I always used) was comforting.

Several passages of Scripture were read.

The sermon was on Uzzah and was the best treatment of that text I have ever heard, though I cannot say there are many to choose from. The pastor was enthusiastic in his delivery and thoroughly biblical in his handling of the story. I love narrative preaching that paints a picture, explains the story, and makes appropriate application. He did well on all counts, and that with nary a hint of alliteration.

I could learn something from this.

Oh, did I mention that the pastor and church were Baptist? They are indeed. Did I mention that this Baptist church is one of the few Cooperative Baptist Fellowship churches that no longer have any ties with the SBC? They don't.

We had better be careful about those stereotypes. It might just profitable for us inerrantists to give geater primacy to Scripture in worship...like this church.

Easter Sunday from the church pew...

...I'm going to give it a try for the first time since 1981. Unless an emergency call comes in (and I have, uh, about thirty years of Easter Sunday sermons ready, although I would warn anyone that they are all on the same subject), I'm a happy pew sitter this Sunday.

Wonder what will happen?

Will the pastor cajole the suddenly swelled crowd in their Easter finest for not making it the other 51 Sundays or will he say, "I'm glad you are here...today...on the Day of the Resurrection...God bless you!" I rather like the latter approach.

I may skip the sunrise service this year...haven't decided. I always led them for the past ten consecutive years.

Will the pastor have anything new to say about the Resurrection. I hope not. The old story cannot be beat and sometime we preacher types overthink things and try and reinvent the wheel. Stick with "He is risen!" and you cannot go wrong.

Will the pastor have some stolen illustrations to use? Will he trot out the old stand-by illustrations that everyone has to have heard forever? Maybe not...but I wouldn't bet on it.

Will I beat the Methodists to the restaurant?

It's going to be an adventure Sunday and I'm not letting anything stand in the way of a great day.

Have a wonderful Easter Sunday (and give NAMB a rest...at least until next week).