Thank you again for your response.
Our youth pastor (seminary trained at the same seminary) completely disagrees with his sermons and wants him removed. As for the majority opinion, no...the majority do not know. Just a select few of the people at the top even know about this. It has not been taken to the majority.
Another thought on his worth: when he was confronted he point blank said he only plagiarized one time. As we have found it more than once, he is an outright liar. Sorry...but that is not something I would esteem in any pastor: temp or permanent.
If it is worth repeating, repeat it. If it is your own, that is not plagiarism. If one finds a message from someone else that they want to relay, that's fine as well. But give credit. When one gives an entire sermon that was written by someone else and gives zero credit to the writer, offering it up as if it is their own, that is a problem. For one, ethically it is wrong. Two, it is equal to stealing. Three, as it is a published sermon, it risks the charge of copyright infringement which could hurt not just the pastor, but the entire church. Four, this pastor has his doctorate degree which would lead me to assume he has heard one or two things about plagiarism. You can't take a freshman writing course without being told about your automatic failure if you are caught plagiarism, not to mention the possibility of being kicked out of school. Seems like he would have enough knowledge to at least give credit for giving an entire sermon as written by someone else.
My comment about this is simply that he tried to say he took an old sermon of HIS from HIS file because he did not have time to prepare a sermon. It turns out that the sermon HE relayed that was supposed to be HIS was someone else's. As I have found this sermon online in printable form, I see it clearly has the title and author at the top. I can only imagine HIS copy of this would have that. I would also only imagine that he would proofread and realize it isn't his own work since he tried to act like it was his to begin with. But, as it is someone else's sermon that he literally added a sentence here or there to, I would assume he knew what he was doing and that he did not accidentally pick somebody else's sermon. As I have already stated, there were two weeks in a row where he plagiarized the same persons work...and one of those weeks he took from two separate works of that same person. This is where it really bothers me because he said he only did it once...and it is two weeks straight from the same person. Kind of an issue there.
I have no problem with something that lines up with scripture. I have no problem with a sermon where something seems ambiguous and the preacher says "it is my thought that..." or "it is my opinion" or "perhaps it means this." But I have an issue with this pastor's presentation here. Another issue I had with that sermon is he also talks about the older brother. He went on and on about how the older brother made up the "sins" that the younger brother committed. He literally spent about 5 minutes saying that the story doesn't tell us what the younger brother and that the older brother made it up to slander the younger brother in front of his father. Now...I'm no expert, but I kind of feel that if Jesus told the parable, then that is his way of telling us exactly what the younger brother did. Our youth pastor feels the same.
A few verses I would share:
1 Timothy 4:12 - Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity (As I said before, I researched what he taught to see if others were teaching that and if I was missing something...so I did not set out to go after my elders, but respected him. However, I do feel that my "youth" is why I am not being listened to).
1 Timothy 3:1-2 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, (one who lies when confronted is NOT above reproach)
I don't call for absolute perfection. None of us are such as that. However, I do believe the pastor of a church (permanent or temporary) is in a position of authority and should thus be held to a higher standard of conduct. If he wants to use the words of another pastor, give credit where it is due. That is called integrity and honesty. If he wishes to do it every week, then say so and let the church decide if they want to pay him or go on youtube to watch someone else preach.
Be blessed, my brother.
The exact words of the church leadership (mind you...a bunch of farmers with no seminary training but who are all related to one another because it is a small town and small church family) "If he were a permanent pastor we would send him packing. Because he is an interim, we don't want to deal with this. Why let him go out in disgrace and then make some of us step up to preach until a new pastor is found?" The very thought of that bothers me. If it was a permanent pastor we would get rid of him and step up to preach. But because he is a temp (going on 9 months now) we will continue to allow him to teach. I think their very logic there speaks volumes. They believe he is 100% out of line but don't want to be inconvenienced while we pay him every week to preach, pay him to travel back and forth from Minneapolis and pay for the house he stays in the couple of nights each week he is here. Meanwhile we are worried about money because we have lost a good number of people over the last several months AND corn prices (farm territory) are very low.
Our youth pastor (seminary trained at the same seminary) completely disagrees with his sermons and wants him removed. As for the majority opinion, no...the majority do not know. Just a select few of the people at the top even know about this. It has not been taken to the majority.
Another thought on his worth: when he was confronted he point blank said he only plagiarized one time. As we have found it more than once, he is an outright liar. Sorry...but that is not something I would esteem in any pastor: temp or permanent.
If it is worth repeating, repeat it. If it is your own, that is not plagiarism. If one finds a message from someone else that they want to relay, that's fine as well. But give credit. When one gives an entire sermon that was written by someone else and gives zero credit to the writer, offering it up as if it is their own, that is a problem. For one, ethically it is wrong. Two, it is equal to stealing. Three, as it is a published sermon, it risks the charge of copyright infringement which could hurt not just the pastor, but the entire church. Four, this pastor has his doctorate degree which would lead me to assume he has heard one or two things about plagiarism. You can't take a freshman writing course without being told about your automatic failure if you are caught plagiarism, not to mention the possibility of being kicked out of school. Seems like he would have enough knowledge to at least give credit for giving an entire sermon as written by someone else.
My comment about this is simply that he tried to say he took an old sermon of HIS from HIS file because he did not have time to prepare a sermon. It turns out that the sermon HE relayed that was supposed to be HIS was someone else's. As I have found this sermon online in printable form, I see it clearly has the title and author at the top. I can only imagine HIS copy of this would have that. I would also only imagine that he would proofread and realize it isn't his own work since he tried to act like it was his to begin with. But, as it is someone else's sermon that he literally added a sentence here or there to, I would assume he knew what he was doing and that he did not accidentally pick somebody else's sermon. As I have already stated, there were two weeks in a row where he plagiarized the same persons work...and one of those weeks he took from two separate works of that same person. This is where it really bothers me because he said he only did it once...and it is two weeks straight from the same person. Kind of an issue there.
I have no problem with something that lines up with scripture. I have no problem with a sermon where something seems ambiguous and the preacher says "it is my thought that..." or "it is my opinion" or "perhaps it means this." But I have an issue with this pastor's presentation here. Another issue I had with that sermon is he also talks about the older brother. He went on and on about how the older brother made up the "sins" that the younger brother committed. He literally spent about 5 minutes saying that the story doesn't tell us what the younger brother and that the older brother made it up to slander the younger brother in front of his father. Now...I'm no expert, but I kind of feel that if Jesus told the parable, then that is his way of telling us exactly what the younger brother did. Our youth pastor feels the same.
A few verses I would share:
1 Timothy 4:12 - Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity (As I said before, I researched what he taught to see if others were teaching that and if I was missing something...so I did not set out to go after my elders, but respected him. However, I do feel that my "youth" is why I am not being listened to).
1 Timothy 3:1-2 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, (one who lies when confronted is NOT above reproach)
I don't call for absolute perfection. None of us are such as that. However, I do believe the pastor of a church (permanent or temporary) is in a position of authority and should thus be held to a higher standard of conduct. If he wants to use the words of another pastor, give credit where it is due. That is called integrity and honesty. If he wishes to do it every week, then say so and let the church decide if they want to pay him or go on youtube to watch someone else preach.
Be blessed, my brother.
