God Given Creativity

I know that there there is becoming an age old question in ministry these days; What do you think about using other peoples sermons? I remember reading from Bill Hybles a couple years ago on an article that was passed out a the Leadership Summit stating that when you purchase a sermon series from Willow, use it to spark creativity but do not copy. Now, I have been in a pinch before and have done this. What I am talking about here is the weekly abuse of the pulpit plagiarism.

I really only have three things to say about this; one is that writers get sued if they write other peoples words and students in college and graduate schools get kicked out of school for doing the same thing that pastors are doing week in and week out in America's pulpits - PLAGIARISM.

Secondly, I am coming to the belief that pastors who do this feed there people scrapes from other pastors plates. They lack the Faith that the Lord will use them and the words the Holy Spirit gives them during methodical preparation to launch life change.

Lastly, if you look at the basic principles of effective communication; Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, Ethos referrers to the speakers integrity, trustworthiness, and knowledge of the content. If we as communicators continue to steal other people sermons, well.... we have very little integrity and little Faith that the Lord will use us and that the Lord has given us creativity.

Will I ever use other peoples sermons - I know that that there will be a time when I have to. But the difference is that we should let our hearers know this - it keeps our Ethos is tact. I also believe that there is nothing wrong with using these sermons as a spring board for your own creativity. I believe that is why they are out there. Anyway, those are my random thoughts about this topic. Until next time...