Your pastor is plagiarizing his sermons; What to do.

All preachers borrow ideas and illustrations from one another.  I heard Adrian Rogers say, “I got this story from someone who got it from someone who got it from the Lord.”  We all smiled and the purists among us were satisfied.  He gave credit.

But what about when a pastor lifts the sermon in toto–lock, stock, and barrel–from another pastor’s book or website?  Is that right?  Is he guilty of something–possibly something illegal? or at least unethical?  Does he violate some unwritten law somewhere? Should a church be concerned?  And what if you are a member of that pastor’s staff and you are the only one who has learned where he is stealing those sermons?

A friend wrote to ask about this. He asked that we keep his identity anonymous, for obvious reasons.

His pastor is well-loved and highly respected.  A father figure almost.  Quite by accident the staff member discovered where the preacher was getting his sermons on the internet.  The man is preaching them verbatim.

“It’s quite impressive, actually,” he told me. “That he can remember those sermons in such detail.”

The pastor obviously did not give credit to the source of those messages since as far as the congregation knows, the Lord was giving those messages to him directly from on high (as opposed to indirectly, by way of this other guy, the one who spends untold hours in his study, on his knees, working and hammering out those messages).

The pastor is being dishonest, of course.  I’ve known of pastors being fired for such.  And he has lost the respect of his staff member who reported it to me.

Who’s going to bell the cat?

What should the staffer do?  If the pastor is insecure or frightened or anything less than a mature believer, to confront him–even in love–with what he is doing could be scary for someone who works under him.

My wife and I have discussed it at length. She’s been a pastor’s wife for over half a century and knows the calling as well as the heartaches and joys. We agreed that for the staffer to go to the pastor with this–“I have found out where you get your sermons”–would be risking his job.

I replied to the anonymous friend that I would reply on the website since I imagine he’s not alone having a pastor who is doing something unethical but wondering what to do about it.

One.  You’re right to be concerned.  Thank you.

Two.  I know you’re praying. The Lord who called this man into the ministry in the first place needs to do something.  Clearly, He already knows this guy has gotten off the track somewhere along the way, but it’s still the right thing to do to pray.

Ask the Lord to handle this.  To awaken the pastor’s heart to what he is doing.  Ask God to give the pastor burdens for messages he should preach and insights from Scripture that cry to be proclaimed so he will not feel a need to lift someone else’s messages.

Three.  And let’s be clear on this up front:  What the pastor is doing is unbiblical and unethical.  “I am against the prophets who steal my words from each other” (Jeremiah 23:30).  There is no justification for what the preacher is doing.

While it’s true that preachers borrow from each other all the time, I give you the words of Warren Wiersbe: “I milk many cows, but make my own butter.”

Four. This is an offence serious enough for him to be fired.  I’ve known at least two ministers who were ousted for plagiarism.

I’m remembering one pastor who was fired for lifting sermons from books published by other preachers.  As the matter came to a head, the newspaper in his city printed the transcript of his sermon alongside the text of that book. They were identical.  The preacher even quoted the author’s personal story as having happened to him.  Can you say ‘lying’?  The effect was to shame him.  Interestingly, a few years later, that same preacher was in the news again, this time for embezzling money from the offerings.  Once we begin to cut corners and rationalize our sins, it becomes easier and easier to go for bigger game.  The little sins lead to the massive ones.  

Five.  Unless the Lord should tell you otherwise in no uncertain terms, a staff member is not the person to confront the pastor with such a matter.  As my wife said this morning over breakfast, “He might find himself out of a job.”  So, if someone deals with the matter, it should not be one of the pastor’s associates.

Six.  Be alert for ideas from the Lord on positive things you can do for the pastor.  Perhaps giving him a great book by some well known pastor or teacher of preachers.  Tim Keller’s stuff is great.  Warren Wiersbe wrote several books on the primacy of preaching. Ask a preacher whom you hold in high esteem to recommend a good one (not too deep or the lazy preacher won’t read it; and not too good or he’ll preach it!!).

Seven.  Keep telling the Lord you are not going to handle this, that this is the Lord’s problem and not yours.  And try to be sweet about it. (Smiling?)  Seriously, keep it before the Lord.  The effectiveness of the pulpit ministry is at stake, and possibly the future of the pastor’s service in that church.

I’ll post a cartoon or two along the way.  Perhaps the pastor will see one of them and get convicted.  Or better yet, perhaps he will read this and think it’s about him.

“You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.”  –Carly Simon

Okay, you’ve noticed something here…

I really haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know.  All I’ve done is agree that this is unscriptural, unethical, and unwise.  And to ease the mind of the anonymous staffer that this is not his problem to solve.

Pastors guilty of this unworthy practice need to go back to the Lord who called them in the first place. Ask Him to clarify a couple of things…

–Did He think you and He were capable of coming up with sermons to fit the people to whom He would send you?

–Does He intend to speak to you out of His word? or was it His intention that you copy from other people’s work?

I would urge you to live in Jeremiah 23 a few days and take its message to heart.  God said to the prophets who were stealing one another’s messages: “But who has stood in the council of the Lord, that he should see and hear His word?  Who has given heed to His word and listened?” (vs. 18)  He added, “If they had stood in My council, then they would have announced My words to My people, and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds” (v.22).

There is your solution.  Get with the Lord.  Read His word and listen.  Stay there. Don’t be in a rush.  Really hear His heart.

And don’t come back without the sermon He wants you to preach to His people.

 

 

37 thoughts on “Your pastor is plagiarizing his sermons; What to do.

  1. Strong words and a fit message for this generation of preachers. You might add Jer.48:10 to the list. “Cursed be the one who does the Lord’s work negligently.”
    Thank you for speaking against this pastor’s unethical practice and calling this what it is, sin.

    I do however, take issue with your recommendation that a staff member not confront the pastor of known sin because he might lose his job. You referenced Jeremiah. So I guess Jeremiah can confront wicked kings and priests and Nathan can confront sinful kings as the Lord directs, with the possibility of losing their life, but for heaven sake, a staff member dare not confront a worthless shepherd because he might lose his job.

    Then what about John the Baptist who confronted Herod, and Stephen who confronted the Jewish rulers. Oh yeah, these guys lost their lives for the sake of confronting sinful leaders. Yet somehow, this innocent staff member should remain silent because he might lose his job if the pastor doesn’t like what he says. And what about the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:12-20. “If your brother sins, go to him and show him his sin in private; if he listens to you [repents] you have won your brother.”

    Sir, you have justly condemned this pastor’s error as a violation of God’s Word. How then can you overlook what the Bible says, even Jesus’ own mandate, to protect this man’s job. The owner of Hobby Lobby was willing to close down everyone of his stores if the Supreme Court ordered him to promote abortion. But somehow men in the church must remain silent when the leader of God’s people is duly in error. I find your advice hypocritical and more in the line of Job’s friends who gave bad counsel. But then who am I.

    Amos 7:14

    • You clearly would like for us to walk around with a clipboard confronting one another with the sins we have spotted. That, my friend, is as far removed from the Christian faith as it’s possible to get. I love the way you start by complimenting me and bragging on what I said and then end up calling me a hypocrite. Well, at least you confronted me.

      • Dear Pastor Joe, please I love most of your articles and read them diligently but I have to disagree with you here. It’s true that the staff member may not be the best person and God may direct otherwise. However, how many dear souls including erring Pastors may end up in hell because of peoples failure to correct leaders. Kindly remember Paul who chastised Peter for his hypocrisy and prevented Christianity from being corrupted. The Christian faith is stained with the blood of faithful saints who suffered, died or were tortured for the truth. God bless you richly

      • Eric is (way, way) too harsh, so much so that I question his motives and need to control based off what he said and the way he said it … But he is also correct. Staff or no, the person who observes the sin should confront them personally and directly – in prayer, love and concern and with a view to restore – but it has to be done. It’s biblical and necessary.

        • Okay. I still disagree. We do not confront every sinner with every sin. This is not like embezzlement or adultery. The pastor is not actually hurting anyone, but merely betraying his calling. he does need to be confronted, but I still say the staff member is probably not the best one to do it.

          • More now than ever I see Christians of many denominations on a witch hunt to condemn a brother and sister. If not over a sin then it’s telling them they are going to hell for having a slightly different interpretation of Scripture. We all need to pray for that person to be convicted of any sin and stop the witch hunt. My former pastor was plagiarizing my Bible studies into his sermons when he visited other churches.This upset me but I finally realized he was impressed with my method of hermeneutics and exegesis and I now take it as a compliment. I got it from the Bible anyway and that is God’s free gift to us all!!! I am an independently ordained minister but only do street ministry one on one or tiny groups. I can’t seem to get my timing right for pulpit ministry, but I am getting old and am more comfortable on the streets anyway. I do funerals and willingly sub for any church in need. Never have taken a dime for doing it either. We all have the calling to go into the world and spread the “Good News”. Most of my sermons are almost always based upon John 3.16, but I include every verse I can about exactly what God thinks of His creations and how He so desires for us to be restored back to Him as it was before sin came into the world. Anyone can plagiarize any portion of my sermons, they’re all from the Bible. This is the number one message from any true Bible following evangelist. More salvations come from this message than any other message I know. Keep in mind when a pastor uses another’s sermon they have not prepared in deep prayer or Bible study before hand. They need prayer support from others even if they don’t know it Ephraim the Syrian (300’s AD) had at least one of his more famous sermons plagiarized.I think sermon ‘borrowing’ has been going on for millennia. If even one soul is saved from anyone borrowing my sermons I can live with that.God is capable of dealing with the rest of it.

          • Pastor thank you that I found this article and I have to confessed, I copied about unbiblical and unethical and sin and quoted Jeremiah 23:18,22 and Jeremiah 23:30 and made a photo of it and send it to my niece’s husband who is a Pastor. I even thank him because I thought it came from his heart. What he was doing was copying Pastor Charles Stanley’s Devotional Daily message. And I read it everyday. I love Pastor Stanley and it really grieved my heart when I found out he was copying his message from the start to finish, except the picture. I sent my niece a message and her husband a message that Per Pastor Joe M and I quoted what you said. But he did not quoted Pastor Charles Stanley and he made his message like his own. I will send a message to my niece that I stopped being a member. They live in the Philippines, he thought no one will found out. He even impressed me about the End of Times. He said that in 2041 Jesus is Coming back. Which the bible said in Matthew 24:36, But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

          • P.S.
            The Pastor replied to me with a quote from Intouch.org from Charles Stanley, saying their website said I can share his daily devotions. I responded sharing is ok but give a tribute to the author like: By Pastor Charles Stanley. He did not do and he copied it instead of sharing it. If you share someone’s work it showed like
            Intouch.org daily devotional but it did not. I will not listen to his message anymore and block the messenger and will not use my facebook anymore.

      • As someone who did “confront” a pastor in this type of error, and who was then invited to leave, I understand your wisdom here. The Lord may direct the staff member to confront – but there may be a consequence so weigh that in the balance.

        Question: Internet has made many online sermons available, for sale, to those who would like to use them. Since the one selling the sermon is giving permission to use that sermon by selling it, it is not technically plagiarism. Do you find this usage offensive, sinful? I still think your counsel: “Get with the Lord. Read His word and listen. Stay there. Don’t be in a rush. Really hear His heart.” applies when purchasing sermons as well. The pastor is not really digging in and struggling with the sermon subject matter, thereby robbing himself and his congregation of the fruit.

  2. Joe:
    Thanks for addressing this important issue. You dealt with the issue honestly and thoroughly. I agree with your advice that the junior associate not confront the erring pastor directly – this is a matter which goes beyond a junior associate/senior pastor interaction.

    I would have recommended that the junior pastor speak directly to the the appropriate denominational leadership – dealing with the offending pastor is the denomination’s responsibility [that’s why denomination leaders are paid the big money :)] The offense is not against the junior pastor but against God and the congregation members; thus, the denomination has the responsibility to act correctly.

  3. If I wrote a book or posted something on the web and a person preached it word for word and used it repeatedly in their ministry for the glory of God, I would would be shouting glory. The message is not our property. We don’t have the right to trademark the truth. We need to be diligent in our preparation and studious, but we put it out there for people to use. Don’t steal and lead people to think you have done work that’s not yours, but I want folks to use my stuff. It is very arrogant to think we can copyright the truth and profit from it. Our attitudes about this — on both sides — reveals a sinister type of pride that is very prevalent in the church today! The pastor doesn’t want the folks to know he doesn’t have the time to organize something original, so he plagiarizes; the staff member is incredulous because he is a professional religious worker in the church and makes his living by writing studies etc, so he feels cheated. I am sitting in Peru feeling smug because I think I can see pride in others — it’s a vicious circle :(. Thank goodness for mercy and forgiveness! Feel free to use this as you wish ;).

    • May we feel free to disagree just as strongly? No one is talking about copyrighting truth. We’re talking about a lack of integrity. That matters a great deal. We’re talking about Jeremiah 23:30, “Woe to the prophets who steal My words from one another.” We’re talking about ministers who say they’re called to preach and are too lazy or too involved in lesser things to get alone with the Lord and get the sermon.

      • I thought you guys were talking about pulpit work. Integrity (what you are when you’re alone; the inner strength derived from character) is another discussion. Academically, plagiarizing is wrong because you are stealing from the original author to receive credit and cheating yourself. You are also not loving your neighbor because the other students worked to produce an original work. With respect to a pastor who, without profiting from a sermon, uses a sermon from a published source without permission is a different matter. The Jeremiah reference does not apply (it is also a misrepresentation of the verse). Pastors receive instruction from Scripture; The prophet received it directly from Yahweh. We all preach the apostle Paul’s stuff. Nothing is original to us. It is arrogant to think that, after 2000 years, we can come up with original Bible preaching. Be sure that someone has said it before if it is worth saying. By the way, I trademarked that last sentence so give me credit if you use it! 🙂 Thanks. I enjoy writing to you. I don’t have many outlets for lively discussions here in Peru. Blessings!

        • I never preach the Apostle Paul’s stuff or any other man’s. I read it and then listen to the Lord. Peter (in 2 Peter) referred to Paul’s writings as Scripture. Be careful about dismissing a clear teaching of Scripture when it does not agree with your position by saying a) it doesn’t apply here or b) you’re interpreting it wrongly. Those are tactics of certain cults. Thank you for the comment. –Joe

  4. Joe, I am sad to say this has become a battle at our church, recently. Last year, I recognized our new pastor giving a sermon that had bothered me on the radio, when I heard it on a program I usually did not listen to. My husband and I take sermon notes and found many uses of materials that should have been given as quoits, but were being claimed as the pastor’s words from God. We brought this to him and were threatened over it. The church deacon also attacked me for questioning the pastor’s sources. We brought it to the counsel which we were a part of, but still no change.Next we brought it to the church body with a few other witnesses, and hence a battle. Advisers who were called by the deacon are taking the mindset that we have been picking on a pastor (of many churches). It has been difficult to bear, as they wish to sweep it under the rug. We gave them chapter after chapter of proof from two books that have been plagiarized over the past year, word for word. Still, half of this small church does not care that the pastor is stealing, deceiving, and being lazy for his pay. He has broken his covenant and has cronies to allow other dishonesty. Passing on other responsibilities to outsiders is another sign. But the men in power lord over the body, or lack of, as the church dwindles. We want to stay and see correction, there. It once was a loving church home.Pray for our cause to be heard by God .

    • I am praying for you and your church right now. While the timeline is a bit different, your story is eerily similar to our small town’s church and the upheaval it has ultimately caused. In our situation, our pastor was “called” to other work when confronted with the evidence of his sin (extensive, word-for-word plagiarism on dozens and dozens of sermons — using other author’s life experiences as his own). Our church “leadership” tried unsuccessfully to sweep it under the rug, let things try to die down & hopefully let the pastor lie low, and during this time many throughout the church, Christians mind you, persecuted those who brought the information forward. As is so happened, after a year of “searching”, leadership nominated this very same pastor to lead our church once more. A Q&A was held to address any concerns or questions that the congregation had, and I will tell you in all my years on this earth I have never seen anything unfold as did this night. Without muddying the waters, if it were not for a few brave members of our congregation, this pastor would still be preaching at our church today. Our church home has definitely seen better days, but we are on the upswing as younger families are moving in that is helping give life/rejuvenating our congregation under our new leadership.

    • I am looking for your advice on the madder above. We have let two outside (pulpit fill reverends) listen to the tapes of sermons and both agree the are pastoral plagiarism, after reviewing J.M. Boice’s books. Neither reverand or association (SBC) hold any control over an autonomous church. Even our church constitution has been broken, as this pastor wishes to depose of the church counsel for any input. Recently, he told the congregation he wants no feedback on his sermons.He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, at age 64. My 86 yr. old father calls it a cult, and no longer a church. The pastor seems very crafty in his MO. We ( ten of us believers for many years) wish to turn him over to Satan to see him repent, but leave the role of pastor at our Baptist church. annonomous

  5. My husband saw this site and said, ” where do you draw the line”? It may not be embezzlement, but stealing is stealing. The pastor does not counsel. but asks for raises when he took three extra weeks of paid vacation (after 3 off) in less than a year, because he holds out of state Obamacare and must run back to TN for visits and medicines. The trustee and deacon let him do this, without being honest and switching to IL insurance. He only wishes to pay TN taxes, but the church accountant said it is illegal. Is dishonesty okay in the pulpit? We think NOT!

  6. Should a group of informed Christians be forced to leave their church to have an honest pastor? congregational churches vote, but that may mean a vote of 15 to 14, and some have not come to hear sermons all year! Titus 2:7 speaks of being an example to others in truth and love. Should we have to travel an hour when the church we are attending is 10 min. from home? The new pastor is not a man above reproach, but if a woman discovers it, she will be told she ought to go elsewhere. I have seen this with deacons who target older ladies in churches, until they are gone.What of bad deacons who fight and pastors who lie?

  7. Ive had this happen to me. I wrote three books primarily based on sermons that I believe the Lord gave to me. I was honored because id never heard anyone preach the things God gave me. I gave many of the books away to pastors and sold many of them. Eventually I heard my unique sermons being preached from several of the same pulpits of those and many others. It felt weird because as I was writing the book, I felt God say to me that I must acknowledge the truth. Then I read on the internet the reasoning behing having an acknowledgement section. After this conviction, I then added an acknowledgements to my books. Some of the words in the book werent mine and I needed to acknowledge from whom they were sourced. And I did that put of respect. Sadly, I didnt receive that same reapect. But I do know the importance of acknowledgement. The words didnt belong to me as the truth comes from God. But hearing someone else preach the messages, even portions of the messages, taken from my personal time with God still felt like a violation. Call it pride or sensitivity, it would have been nice to hace the credit. Nevertheless, God is still good and the validation of someone else preaching what God spoke to me has increased my faith that i am not only hearing from God…but the things I am hearing are valuable to someone else….as it is often repeated “to God be the glory.”

  8. The sermon yesterday (Jan 05, 2019) brought me here. As I have taken notes, I was amazed of how organized the outlines was by our Pastor. It was not my intention to shame him but I found his sermon on the internet, same illustrations were used and of course the outline. I talked about this with my boyfriend and he noticed that it was not just the illustrations and the outline but 80% of the manuscript was copied. This bothers me a lot. Pray for our church in the Philippines!

  9. It bothers me that some people are so confused about this issue. That means that, to a great extent, we have let our thinking become muddied with our culture’s morals. The bottom line is: If someone takes something that is yours (even words), that is stealing, aka, plagiarism. It doesn’t matter if you are OK with it or it doesn’t bother you or you wholeheartedly thrust your work on others to make them take it: if they don’t give attribution, it is stealing. The culture seems to think that words are just molecules that are floating around like air for all of us to use. Air is not created by a particular person; words are. Yes, God gets the glory. But it is the one who writes the sermon who has been the one who has wrestled with God to work out his or her spirituality. Those words are your own personal testimony. If someone wants to share them (with attribution), great. But to steal them is to claim that that person had the spiritual experience to go along with the written word. And that is a lie. And how can you build an honest church on that?

  10. I am a minister who went to a seminary where I was harassed sexually And racially by a one preacher in an open seminary. We talked by Adobe Connect three times a week and studied in cohort groups led by a student who was linked permanently with the school when the Adobe Connect couldnt connect with our Australian teacher (at least once a week we’d hear a voice crying out from the down under wilderness asking “can you hear me?” We all texted in barely! All of our readings were torn from pages someone else’s book including the Salvation Army and Goodwill. We never got a full class night. I Got tired and went online to get my doctorate.

    The fact is that Jesus’ apostles could all be plagiarizers simply because he said to teach them what I taught you. All exegetes where I was take notes from the Pastor on Sunday and the Pastor and Associates steal their prayers and sermons from each other going so far as asking for copies! Sex BEFOREHAND DC Downlow Baptist NW is where I received a scholarship and was touched, compromised by both women and men, (having received cards with hearts from both sexes), I lost faith. Monsters there were not only dishonest but they were also “wolves.” (Pastor quoted George Clinton of the Funkadelics as a Saint, why must I be like that, why must the dog chase the cat, nothin but the DOG IN ME! Nothing about quoting Jesus and the GOD IN ME. God spelled backwards is DOG!)!

    Certainly and without a doubt by their own admission, these were wolves in wolves clothing, in the worst sense of the word.

    Stealing didn’t just include sermons, it included your clothes, your purse, your tithe envelope from your purse, clothes from your closet were borrowed and worn in your face by other members. They ripped up your designer purse, hard, and suits and trotted around in your stolen Burberry slippers (bought pre-loved). They even stole your behind by touching it without permission. They killed older members for crimes like not having an offering or talking too much in a meeting. (This chirch ain’t for everybody!) They killed would be ministers and ministers who were competition. There was a funeral every week for insirance policy money which they asked for by way of beneficiary on the policies. Someone should check how many were left to the church. The building fund never ended. The mortgage never got burned. They never recovered the loss from the great fire. Employees were released because there was not enough money to pay them. Associates were never paid. You were required to be a choir member and a preacher.

    All of the above is why I am an independent minister and you could say I am a bitter butter maker. If it sounds right I’ll use it but I know who to copy. And I’m. copied even before I preach from my stack of prewritten sermons.

    How stupid to sit around judging whether or not someone is using someone else’s words! Preachers do it all the time and there are even sermon sketches that are purchased from databases all over the United States. We all copy the Bible word for word and use that BOOK as sacred making it OK to copy King James and Jesus!

    Find something else to do. Sounds like a case of jealousy. The stories have all been told and retold and how difficult it is to say, I completely made this up. Go teach someone that God is love, not covetous, but peace loving, stop being jealousy accusative. Does the person reporting all of this want to preach?
    Just GO and preach! You can copy that!

  11. With this issues I am part of local church too, and these is one of the issues right now. So please jhelp us where we can get good advised regarding these issues pastor using other preacher preaching every sunday.

  12. You can’t steal what is freely given away. Many sites that have “pastoral helps” give options to downloading sermons. So how it is plagerizing?

    • Good question, but it’s missing something important: What’s wrong about plagiarizing a sermon is not that you are stealing it from someone else, but that you are preaching something as your own which the Lord gave/revealed to someone else. I am not saying the Lord could not give you the same message, but personally I’d think that would come after a lot of prayer and reflection and study. My opinion.

      • We have recently become aware of our pastor using sermons and study he gets online, either by buying or printing off free sites. Our deacons confronted him, and he will not admit to any wrongdoing. He gave an “apology” to the church complete with “If I offended you,” and an illustration about an ax and a cobra sneaking into the carpenter’s shop at night. I guess that was his warning to stop pursing his transgression.

        We began recording our sermons during the pandemic. So far almost everyone has been bought and read verbatim with a few antidotes of his own thrown in, but most of the sermons are read word for word with, he cuts out paragraphs that we would know are obviously not his.

        He claimed he lost his old notes for our current bible study and had to rework them. His new notes we found on the internet and followed along verbatim. When publicly confronted by one of our members, who found these notes word for word from a book, he dismissed her and blew it off with a joke. The next week he came back reading the same notes from the same website. And all along claiming how hard he had studied.
        This past Sunday when he “apologized,” to the church he didn’t mention the Bible study notes, and only said he occasionally uses sermons verbatim. We plan to have a special business meeting, so the members know the true extent of his use of online recourses. Honestly, I pray he decides to step down. I don’t think the church can survive him staying or survive a big blowup meeting. But maybe it isn’t in the Lord’s will for the church to continue.

        • We never had the meeting. The deacons did nothing even after his phony apology. The pastor even admitted to a small group of people at a Wednesday Bible study he had been plagiarizing for years. They laughed it off, one said, “If that’s what he Holy Spirit is leading you to do,” and another said, “Keep doing what you’re doing.” He said he would tell the entire church the full extent of what he has been doing the next Sunday, we told him if he did we would no longer pursue the issue. He weaseled out and didn’t tell the congregation. For the next 3 weeks he said nothing. His sermons weren’t as good, so at least they weren’t plagiarized those weeks. As the worship leader I could not in good conscience lead the people and watch them put their hard earned money into the plate knowing their pastor had told a bald faced lie to them. Mind you the pastor’s pay takes almost half of the budget. (Housing allowance, tax free! Not a small amount) All the sermons we’re from a website that clearly states they are copyright protected. I confronted the pastor with the evidence during a leadership meeting, he still admitted he did nothing wrong. He tried to gaslight me like I am the crazy one, turning a mole hill into a mountain. Anyway, I quit right then and there. (Within minutes of quitting they removed all the sermons off of Facebook) It’s not my battle. Sometimes in life you are dealing with a dishonest actor. The church is weak and probably beyond repair, I was there many years and have watched a once great church slowly erode. But this is what happens when you have dishonesty in the pulpit. Why on earth would anyone give their money to a church that condones such lying is beyond me. Might as well hire a actor from the local community theater to preach. This is the type of thing that turns people off to church. It leads to weak churches, no wonder the church in America is in decline.

  13. I am part of the leadership team. I have confronted our senior leader and our pastor when I found out she was plagiarising sermons .. word for word from beginning to end. She responded by saying there is nothing wrong with it because it is still God’s word . I still don’t agree . It’s now being brushed under the carpet.

  14. I am a board member and I am dealing with this issue now. The entire board had a meeting with the pastor and asked him to stop and get in the Bible and on his knees to get what God has for our church.Ever since his sermons have been very condemning towards us the board.He has turned things against us to several members in the church telling them that we are just out to get rid of him which they believe. I was told by district officials not to talk to members about the issues so they don’t really know the truth.Tonight we are all meeting with the sectional board to try to resolve this.I was the one who discovered the sermons being copied and have the printed material from online sources. The problem now is the pastor and wife have deleted the sermons from our Facebook page.What a mess.

  15. Pingback: Of Pulpits and Plagiarism — The Christian Podcast Community

  16. I’m not a minister. I speak to my ministers exactly as I do to all people. The first lie that I caught would be called within minutes! My ministers trust me and I trust them. Any person that I can’t trust is never in my presence by my choice.

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