1. It's not new. There is an incident from the life of Ben Franklin. Franklin's young pastor was accused of using someone else's sermons. Franklin's comment was, I'd rather he preach a good sermon that someone else wrote than a poor one that he wrote.
2. All of George's "preventions" are from the point of view of how to prevent yourself from stealing someone else's sermon. I would like to suggest a better "prevention" which will prevent other people from stealing yours: write sermons that are so true to your life and so true to the specific life of the congregation before you that they would look silly if stolen and preached by someone else.
Thank you for sharing, and for your attitude of grace toward your wife's parents. I think your approach is correct. Theirs, however, is indeed a *small* step in the right direction. Someday I hope they say to you, "What we did was wrong, we are sorry, we are asking you to forgive us"
That puts the weight on them, where it belongs. "Have you forgiven us" puts the weight on you, which is not where the weight should be in this case.
Posted in: Preventive Maintenance against Sermon Stealing
Two comments:
1. It's not new. There is an incident from the life of Ben Franklin. Franklin's young pastor was accused of using someone else's sermons. Franklin's comment was, I'd rather he preach a good sermon that someone else wrote than a poor one that he wrote.
2. All of George's "preventions" are from the point of view of how to prevent yourself from stealing someone else's sermon. I would like to suggest a better "prevention" which will prevent other people from stealing yours: write sermons that are so true to your life and so true to the specific life of the congregation before you that they would look silly if stolen and preached by someone else.
Posted in: Progress Is Progress
Reggie,
Thank you for sharing, and for your attitude of grace toward your wife's parents. I think your approach is correct. Theirs, however, is indeed a *small* step in the right direction. Someday I hope they say to you, "What we did was wrong, we are sorry, we are asking you to forgive us"
That puts the weight on them, where it belongs. "Have you forgiven us" puts the weight on you, which is not where the weight should be in this case.
Carry on, brother