Scott M. Gibson - Should We Use Someone Elses Sermon?: Preaching in a Cut-and-Paste World

Also by Scott Gibson
The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, with Keith Willhite
Making a Difference in Preaching
Preaching the Old Testament
Preaching for Special Services
Preaching to a Shifting Culture

To Rhonda,
who stole my heart.

ZONDERVAN

Should We Use Someone Elses Sermon?
Copyright 2008 by Scott M. Gibson

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ePub Edition January 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-57468-2

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gibson, Scott M., 1957

Should we use someone elses sermon : preaching in a cut-and-paste world / Scott M. Gibson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-0-310-28673-8

1. Preaching. 2. Plagiarism. I. Title.

BV4211.3.G53 2008

251 dc22

2008016705

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, NewInternational Version . NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

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CONTENTS

They came and prigged my silver,
my linen and my store,
But they couldnt prig my sermons;
they had all been prigged before.

E. V. Lucas, from the novel Mr. Ingleside

Im grateful to Wayne Shaw and Chuck Sackett for the kind invitation for me to deliver the Webb Lectures on Preaching at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary in the fall of 2005. This opportunity to speak to students, faculty, and alumni on the topic of preaching and plagiarism was the catalyst that enabled me to put onto paper my research and reflections. Thanks to Wayne and Chuck and those in attendance for your feedback and interaction.

The opportunity to lecture on preaching and plagiarism at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, during the spring school of 2007, gave me further occasion to test my thinking. Thank you for this privilege. Thanks to Jeffrey Arthurs, Haddon Robinson, Matthew Kim, Casey Barton, Patricia Batten, Calvin Choi, Eric Dokken, and Lee Eclov for your insights from reading various drafts of the project.

Thanks, too, to Grant Buchholtz, Keith Campbell, Joy Carren, Aaron Chan, Holgie Choi, Michael Curtis, David Hanke, Thomas V. Haugen, Lisa Morrison, Bill Nicoson, Stephen Nyakairu, Gus-tin Oh, John Percival, Deryk Richenburg, Mike Samson, Stephen Sebastian, Ken Shigematsu, Brian Shockey, Ken Swetland, and Samuel Yu.

Many thanks to the Board of Trustees of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for the generous gift of sabbatical study, during which I researched and wrote this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Im grateful to John V. Tornfelt, academic dean at Evangelical School of Theology in Meyerstown, Pennsylvania, for permission to use his case study and teaching notes for Whose Sermon Is It? Johns interest in the subject of preaching and plagiarism helped as I honed the chapters of this book.

A thousand thanks to Paul Engle of Zondervan for your wisdom, insight, and support for this project. Years ago Paul gave me, a fledgling junior professor of preaching, an opportunity to publish, for which I continue to be grateful. Once again I have the pleasure of working with him. Your understanding and interest in the subject and your suggestions and encouragement have sustained this project more than you can imagine. Thanks also to Verlyn Verbrugge and intern Karin Walters at Zondervan for your expert and careful editing of this project. I appreciate it more than you know.

Tobias Wolff wrote Old School , a novel about a student who plagiarized a short story while studying at an exclusive boys school. The boy pilfered a story that was written a few years earlier by a female student from the neighboring girls school. At the time of the accusation, the president of the student honor council said despairingly to the plagiarist, Plagiarisms bad enough. But from a girl? I cant believe youd plagiarize from a girl. However, I know a girl whos worth stealing from, my wife, Rhonda. She has shown me what it means to love. She is patient, attentive, constant in her faith, and worth copying.

So, this book on sermon stealing is dedicated to my wife, Rhonda, who stole my heart. She kidnapped me and has held me ransom with love. Her support, care, and grace have changed my life. Hers is an appropriate theft one for which Ill be ever thankful to the Lord, and by which Im truly blessed.

If it happens that a preacher weaves among his
own words a proportion of other mens flowers, he
falls into worse disgrace than a common thief.

John Chrysostom

SCENE ONE: FLAP IN FELLOWSHIP HALL

The first time I faced the ugliness of plagiarism was when I was sixteen years old. It was the days of the Jesus Movement, and as a new Christian I was involved in every Bible study or any other kind of study. One of the studies I participated in was a reading group consisting of men and women of all ages. We met weekly, reading through popular Christian books. We read a chapter or two for each weeks meeting and discussed it.

While at worship one Sunday morning at my home church, the preacher talked in his sermon about an incident that happened to him that week. He described a scene that took place in the middle of the night as he tended to his little girls. The setting, the words, the mood everything came from the book our group was reading.

As the congregation filtered out of the building, one of the leaders of the group Don, a middle-aged man confronted the pastor while he was shaking hands at the door. You used a story from Keith Miller, didnt you? he queried. He challenged him a little more. The pastor was shaken. He mumbled and fumbled, but the accusations did not move any further until later that afternoon.

I was home when the telephone rang. My mother called me to the phone.

Its Mr. Cunningham, she said. I knew Mr. Cunningham. He was the head deacon, a retired farmer who had given his life to the church. Mr. Cunningham was always kind to me. He knew I didnt come from a Christian home and was happy that I had become part of the church.