Kneading Bread

But what do pastors do when they’ve got no time (or creativity) to give this week’s message? Well, if the WSJ has the scoop -they plagiarize it.

The article seems to put the blame for plagiarism at the feet of pride and entertainment, but what disturbs me most is the spiritual impact of this – if a pastor is too tired, too busy, or too culturally unaware to present a cogent, biblically-sound and original sermon perhaps there is something else that needs to be addressed. The spiritual health of pastors is rarely the concern of the congregants, however it should be the concern of the elder’s board.

Two things seem to feed this, in addition to the need to impress (wholly my own observation):

1. The personality types attracted to the pastorate are “helper” types who have issues when being outside of a perceived “helper” role
2. Often a congregation treats the pastor as spiritually different from the laity and, as such, the pastor treated as exceptional (He/She becomes an “other” in their spiritual community)

The root of these are pride and idolatry, and the repercussions of them work into Sunday sermons. The intellectual absentia of our pastorate is disturbing, but we need to ask ourselves: is this what we want?

Do we want entertainment or do we want integrity?

I cannot fathom this:

The plagiarism debate grew louder in recent months after a sermon site posted an essay by the Rev. Steve Sjogren titled, “Don’t be original, be effective!” Mr. Sjogren urged pastors to quit spending time striving for originality and instead, to recite the words of better sermonizers.

For me, this opinion creates hypocrisy that will cumulatively lead people away from the truth – for the truth is not hypocritical.

Thanks to Between Two Worlds – who has a far clearer understanding of the matter, I’m just venting!