Internet Sermons Inspire Ministers To Be Creative
Some Clergy Members Even Make Website Words Their Own
September 20, 2009|By Lois K. Solomon Staff Writer
If you are giving a sermon any time soon, feel free to use one of the Rev. Harold White's.
The Baptist minister, who retired in 1999 after 47 years at the pulpit, has loaded 600 sermons he gave during his career on to his website, Angelfire.com/fl5/hleewhite/. He has 600 to go.
White, who lives in West Palm Beach but spent most of his career in McMinnville, Tenn., says his site has received more than 10 million hits. The most popular sermons are holiday-related, including those for Easter and Mother's Day.
White said he prefers that ministers not repeat the sermons verbatim, but he knows their use is out of his control once he posts them.
"It's between them and God what they preach," said White, 76. "Nobody wrote these for me. It took me a long time to realize they don't belong to me; they belong to God."
White's sermon project competes among an abundance of sermon websites that have been created in the past few years to assist ministers who need help brainstorming an eloquent Sunday message.
White's site is free, but many charge for access to their databases, including PreachingToday.com [$69.95 a year] and IFindSermons.com [$100 a year]. There also is SermonCentral.com - which sells access to 150,000 sermons, illustrations, videos and PowerPoint presentations for $119.50 a year - and specialized sites such as Sermons4Kids.com, BlackSermons.com and a site for sermons from the Episcopal church.
The Rev. Jeff Knight of First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach subscribes to SermonCentral. He said he uses the site for help with funerals, when he must find something inspirational to say quickly.
"Funerals pop up all of a sudden, and the site gets my creative juices flowing," said Knight, 41, who has led the church for four years. "If it's on SermonCentral, you can use it as it is" and it is not considered plagiarism, he said.
Many pastors recite the online sermons word-for-word, a big mistake, said Scott Gibson, preaching professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and author of Should We Use Someone Else's Sermon? Few will admit to plagiarizing, he said, although it has become extremely common.
"Plagiarism isn't new. It's gone on for centuries," Gibson said. "The Internet makes sermons available in a different way. I want folks to use what they've been trained to do, to do their own work."
Responding to charges of plagiarism, more than 7,000 pastors have signed on to "The Preacher's Pledge," according to SermonCentral, promising to use the Bible as their main sermon source and not to copy others' work.
Gibson said the average pastor spends about 15 hours a week on sermons, seeking the perfect mix of direct message, smooth language, biblical references and reasonable length. But as many pastors have gained national reputations for their televised preaching, the pressure on the average pastor today to lead and entertain has magnified, Gibson said, leading some to depend on the words of others whose work they may consider more glib and powerful.
The Rev. Ray Henry, pastor of Belvedere Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, said he visits Harold White's site a few times a year for inspiration, usually around holidays. He said he spends about eight hours a week working on his sermons, which are about 12 pages long.
"You take the idea and try to build your thoughts from his," said Henry, who has been a pastor for 40 years. "Every pastor pulls something from somebody."
Henry said he never copies others' sermons. Besides the immorality of plagiarizing, he said, people can tell when the words are not your own. "Your personality comes out in your writing," Henry said. "It won't come out well if someone else wrote it. You've got to make it your own."
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