Plagiarizing and Ministry

My friends over at Think Christian
have this Blog Entry


I find it amusing. I enjoy doing research, offering resources for FREE, and helping out but there has to be some effort to put your mark and take for ministry. I had a Senior Pastor that preached from a Book word for word. (I still remember the title: How to Love someone you can't stand). Sad really. And then I heard one of my favourite authors was fired for plagiarizing from Bob Russell(Bob Russell's sermons from his radio show) (article here
. He wrote a book entitled, Escape From Church, Inc. That made me SAD. And then @ a Teen convention I heard a seminar plagiaring Mike Yaconelli and telling the story of Sadie as if it happened to them. And then also at a youth convention - where the Main Speaker was paid - He spoke from a book entitled Great Youth Outlines and Discussions.

Is plagiarizing something new? Nope. I just pray that the pastors that do it are convicted to STOP!

As someone once told me - Quoting only one source "Plagiarizing"

Quoting 3 or more sources : RESEARCH

Adding your insight to the Research "Priceless"

Comments

Len said…
E. Glenn Wagner plagerized "Escape from Church Inc?" Get out! I love that book.
Gerrard Fess said…
No He didn't plagiarize the book but plagiarized his sermons from Bob Russell and was let go ....I'll see if I can find that link.
Adam McLane said…
I think you bring up some great points. I know Ryan has told me that he's had a problem with people submitting plagarized stuff to P2Y over the years. Just curious what you would think of this... I will often, in preparing for a message, read several sermons. I tend to find one that I really like and take the outline itself, not the words per se, but the way he chose to explain a passage. I seem to do this most often with Spurgeon's sermons... he had great "form" so why not save the time and use his outline with my talk?

Just curious what you thought of that.
tonymyles said…
Would a whole message spoken right out of the Bible (with no commentary or "preaching") be plagiarizing?
Gerrard Fess said…
Tony - that wouldn't be plagiarizing that would be quoting from the Word ... and people should know or rather be told.

As to Adam's question - I think we need to be careful, I think an outline is ok (Give Credit) but also add your own material and of course do the research. So often what I believe Ryan is concerned about is people submitting like some of Doug Field's stuff and just putting their name on it, and claiming it as their own. Or another site - stealing from his and promoting on their site. I'm all for cooperation and consideration as long as done respectfully.

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