Hello Friends:

I will be preaching meeting at New Buffalo Baptist Church in Grover, NC June 18-20, 2012. The services will be at 7:00 PM each evening. On Wednesday morning June 20, I have been given a special opportunity. The Pastor, Brother Adam Green, is hosting a morning preacher’s service at 10:00 AM. During that service, I will be preaching to the men who attend and we will share a time of fellowship and food following the service. Just below this post I have included a letter from Brother Greene inviting all the men of God to this special service. If you would be able to attend, please give Brother Adam a call and let Him know. Thanks, and I hope to see you then.

Alan

Here is the letter.

Dear Pastors and Ministers,

We have a great opportunity to have a worship service composed of mainly of pastors and ministers who would like to be fed by a fellow pastor who is well known by many like you.

With great honor and joy of having Pastor Alan Carr from Calvary Baptist in Lenoir, North Carolina, preaching for us.

I have always considered Pastor Carr to be a Preacher’s Preacher. He is well known for the great love, time and effort that he puts in the Sermon Notebook for fellow ministers which is a blessing from the Lord.

Pastor Carr is also preaching our revival, June 18-20, 7:00 p.m. We would welcome your church to join us. There will be special music each night.

I, Pastor Adam Green would consider it a great honor if you could join us at New Buffalo Baptist Church, Wednesday, June 20, at 10:00 a.m. for this worship service. We will have

a fellowship meal afterwards also at the church.

Please R.S.V.P. by Wednesday, June 18, so we will prepare food for all.

R.S.V.P. @

mgreen2@carolina.rr.com

704-913-4398 cell

Pastor Adam Green

Check this out:

Merry Christmas to you all!

Alan

Plagiarism Part 2

In my last post I addressed the issue of preachers preaching sermons by other preachers and claiming those sermons as their own. In this post we will talk about some of the reasons some preachers feel compelled to “borrow” sermons that were authored by other men.

Part of the blame rests at the feet of the church. Many preachers are swamped by the demands of their many duties. Since most churches in America are small in size, it stands to reason that most pastors are bi-vocational. That is, they have to work a public job to provide for the needs of their families. There is no shame in being a bi-vocational preacher. I did it for many years, and the day may come when I need to do it again.

So, here you have a man who pastors a church. That fellow works a full time job to make ends meet. He is expected to do just about everything in the church he pastors.  When there is a surgery, he is supposed to be there. When someone misses church, he is expected to call and visit. When there is a work day, the church expects him to take his day off to help them work around the church. This same man changes light bulbs, sweeps the walk, picks up the used Kleenexes out of the song racks, polices the parking lot, mows the grass, and does just about everything else you can imagine. When Sunday morning comes around, that same church expects that same overworked man to deliver an exceptional sermon. Then, they expect him to do the same thing on Sunday evening, and again on Wednesday night. No one takes into account the fact that their poor pastor has worked his fingers to be bones that week to meet the needs of his family and to make sure that everything around the church is in order. No one takes into account the fact that  he has spent scant time with his wife and children because he has been so busy elsewhere. All most people think about is why the sermon seemed flat today. Or why it sounded like some other sermon he preached in the past.

There’s no denying the fact that some preachers are lazy. They will not take the time in the study that good preaching requires. They are too busy hunting, fishing, playing golf, playing video games, etc., to do the hard work of excellent sermon preparation. However, there are many more preachers who are doing the best they can. They work hard, and because they do not preach like a Charles Stanley or a John MacArthur, some people fail to recognize the contribution they are making to the kingdom of God. They don’t mind the long hours. They don’t mind the lack of recognition for their efforts. They don’t resent the work they do for their family or for their church. But, they are overloaded and their time is valuable. Be sure they have enough to do what they need to be doing.

So, church member, cut your preacher some slack. Get out there and help him visit. Take some of that work around the church off the preacher and free him up to spend his time in the Word of God. After all, that is his call, Acts 6:4; 2 Tim. 4:2. Do your best not to have expectations concerning your preacher that are unrealistic.

There is also the problem of unrealistic expectations regarding their preaching abilities. Think about it. A lot of church members get up on Sunday morning and watch Charles Stanley before they go to church to hear their own preacher. Now, Dr. Stanley is a talented preacher. He is not expositional, but he has a voluminous memory. He preaches for nearly an hour without notes. People hear him and they are impressed. What they fail to take into account is the fact that preaching is all he has to do. He does not have to make hospital or nursing home visits. His phone doesn’t ring at 3:00 AM. He is associates to take care of matters like that. He has a secretary who types his sermons. He has research assistants that help find illustrations. He has a whole staff that makes sure he has nothing to do but preach.

Does your preacher have that? My guess is that he doesn’t. Does he have the benefit of a first rate seminary education? Most likely he doesn’t. No, your preacher works hard and he studies when time allows, but he knows that people expect him to be excellent every time he walks into the pulpit. He knows the people are listening to MacArthur, Piper, Lawson, Stanley, and a host of other talented preachers on their computers, their iPods, etc., and he knows they expect him to be as articulate, as relavant and as polished as those men are. Well, he isn’t those man and he never will be!

In an effort to meet what he believes to be the expectations of his people, he may turn to the Internet to find just the right sermon. He goes out there hunting a sermon that speaks to him. He searches for one that exhibits scholarship, spirituality, and power. He takes that sermon and he preaches it. He may feel guilty about it. He may wish he could prepare that kind of sermon on his own. But, he needs something to preach becasue Sunday is relentless. It is always coming, and his week as been one activity after the other. So, he takes the sermon he found online, or in a book; he makes a few changes here or there, and he preaches it. The people are blessed. Then, someone finds out he got that sermon from another source, and failed to give credit for it, and they turn their back on the man of God because he failed to live up to their warped view of what a preacher is. They never take into account that they, and their foolish expectations, are part of the problem.

How do you help your preacher? You start by letting him be the man God designed him to be. God did not call us all to be Charles Stanley or John MacArthur. If God had wanted us all to be like them, HE would have cloned those men. God called your preacher to be the man he is, warts and all. God called him knowing his abilities. God called him knowing his level of education and skill. God called your preacher to be the man he is. What you can do to help him the most is to turn off that TV preacher, turn off that sermon on your iPod, and pray for your preacher. Ask God to make his study time valuable. Ask God to free him up so that he has time to prepare sermons. Ask God to fill him with the Holy Ghost, so that when he stands up to preach, the power of God falls. Most of all, ask the Lord to empty your head and heart of empty expectations regarding your preacher and his sermons, and pray that God will allow you to hear your preacher with fresh ears.

Your preacher is God’s gift to your church. Eph. 4:11-13, and you should be thankful for him. I am not saying that church members should not listen to other preachers preach, but I am saying that it is always wrong to compare your pastor to another man. It is unrealistic. It is hurtful. It is detrimental to the work of the church. It undermines your pastor’s confidence in his own preaching. If you like another preacher, listen to him, but do not compare your preacher to him, and for Heaven’s sake, never tell your preacher you wished he was more like so and so.

We preachers need to acknowledge the fact that plagiarism is a problem among our own ranks. There are far too many men who rest on the work of other men and refuse to do the hard work of sermon preparation for themselves. But, the church also needs to acknowledge that they have overloaded, overworked and over-everything their preachers to the point that have helped create the mess in which some preachers find themselves.

What do we do about it? Well, preacher you need to open your Bible and read it. You need to spend time before the Lord asking Him to open His Word to your understanding. You need to prepare to the best of your ability, ask God to fill you with His Spirit and His power, and climb in that pulpit and preach.

Church, you need to thank God for your pastor. You need to free him up so that he has the time to pray for you and prepare the sermons you and your family need to hear. You need to stand by him and remember that every time he pours himself into your life, that is less time he has to pour the Word of God into himself.

We all need to understand that, at the end of the day, what matters is not who authored the sermons. What matters is this: Is it biblical? Does it proclaim the Gospel? Does it feed the flock? Does it glorify God? Does it clearly exegete the Scripture? Does it help you grow in grace? Those are the weighty issues, not whether or not your preacher was 100% original in everything he said.

We’ll talk about this some more in the coming days.

Alan

Plagiarism. Part 1.

Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work, as by not crediting the author.” Other words for this practice include: appropriation, infringement, piracy, counterfeiting; theft, borrowing, cribbing, passing off. Plagiarism occurs a lot in the secular world. However, that realm of its occurrence is not the concern of this article. I am concerned about plagiarism in the pulpit.

Over the past few years, I have read several articles about the misuse of sermons and other materials by preachers. It is a very disturbing phenomenon that is occurring with far too much frequency in the modern church. A few high profile preachers have seen their ministries engulfed and destroyed because they were caught passing off the sermons of others as their own. In one case, the preacher was dealing with a time of severe clinical depression and turned to sermons by other preachers because he was unable to concentrate, and thus he was unable to prepare his own sermons. That is understandable, and it could happen to any of us. After all, we all go through dry spells, don’t we? This particular man fell into trouble because, when he was confronted about the sermons he had been preaching, he claimed them as his own, and did not give credit to the original author. Gentlemen, that is an integrity issue!

Let’s take a little time to think through this issue together.

First, let’s acknowledge the fact that none of our preaching is 100% original. We all glean from many sources when we prepare our sermons. If you look at the progression of my preaching, you will see shades of John Phillips, Jerry Vines, James Merritt, John MacArthur and a host of others.  It’s not that I have used their sermons in their entirety, but it is true that I have gleaned from them on many occasions. I have tried, at least in recent years, to acknowledge their contributions either in end notes within the sermons, or with a disclaimer on my web site. We all use the work of others, and we should, but we should use the work produced by other men with integrity, giving credit where credit is due.

So, let’s face the fact that none of us are 100% original. When I think about that, I am reminded of the young preacher who said, “I will be original in my preaching, or I will be nothing.” Turns out he was neither. We will walk the same path through Scripture that others before us have walked, and there is nothing wrong with us gleaning from their efforts, but we must learn to give them credit for their work.

The problem in sermon development occurs when we claim the work produced by another man as our own. You would be shocked to know how often I receive E-mail from church members who have discovered that their pastor is using my sermons in his weekly preaching ministry. They will hear him preach a message, go to the Internet to find out more about the subject, and find my web site, which contains the sermon they just heard their preacher preach. Then, when they approach their pastor to ask him about it, the pastor refuses to acknowledge that he has taken a sermon by another man and claimed it for his own. I could give you incident after incident of ruined churches and ministries caused by a lack of integrity on the part of the pastor. One pastor went so far as to claim that he sold me the sermons that appear on my web site years ago when he was in another ministry. Aside from the fact that this is an outright lie, it is downright disturbing that a preacher would do something like that.

In my opinion, most everyone in any given congregation would respond well to a pastor who simply told the truth about where he heard or read the sermon. The people in the pew appreciate integrity far more than they do attempts at cleverness and originality. The people in the pew deserve integrity from the men who lead them and feed them! Anything less than honesty is an outright lie; anything less than uprightness and integrity is a disgrace upon any ministry!

I have no illusions that other preachers are preaching my sermons. I put them on the Internet, not because I think they are something special, but simply because I want to be a help to other preachers. If I do a word study, work through a difficult passage, or write about some theological issue in a way that make is easier for others to understand, my work can save them time in their own preparation work. Dr. Adrian Rogers used to say, “If my bullets fit your gun, fire away! But, use you own powder.” However, it is sad when preachers refuse to do the hard work of sermon preparation and take such shortcuts and use a sermon prepared by another man. They compound their error when they claim that sermon as their own. They destroy their testimony when they lie about where the sermon came from when they are questioned about it. Even if the congregation never discovers the deception, the Lord in HEaven knows all about it.

When is ever more sad, and infuriating on some levels, are the men who take the work of others and publish it under their own names. That is theft, and it is no different than shoplifting, or any other kind of stealing. I can go to sermoncentral.com and find dozens of my sermons and sermon series posted under the names of other men. Most of us would not think of taking property that belonged to another person, but we have no qualms about stealing their intellectual property and claiming it as our own.

My goal in this article is to ask preachers to stop and think about their testimonies. Is the appearance of originality worth the loss of your testimony? Is the momentary embarrassment of acknowledging that someone else prepared that particular sermon worth the cost of lying about and claiming for yourself? I think not!

We will talk more about this issue in coming days.

Alan

It has been a while since I stopped by the write anything. That has been intentional. For the last while blogging has been pretty low on my list of things that needed to be done. However, I decided to sit down this morning to share a few thoughts and to catch up with you.

The past few weeks have been busy with my responsibilities at church and school. Things are going very well at Calvary Baptist, and for that we are grateful. The Lord has been meeting with us, blessing His Word and sending visitors in ever increasing numbers. That is always a good thing. School is going well at West Lenoir. We have a good group of men this year and the we are enjoying some very special times as we study the Word of God and fellowship together around the things of God. I finally got around to updating the CD-Rom. It is now a DVD, which contains The Sermon Notebook website, and about 3,000 of my sermons. If you are interested, you can go to the DVD page for more information. What else? Oh yeah, I am currently working with Wordsearch to make my sermons available as part of their program. I am pretty excited about that. I will let you know when they release the add-on module.

I am preaching this week at Startown First Baptist Church in Newton, NC. The Pastor is Brother Dean Hart. Thus far, we are having a great time in the Lord. He has demonstrated His power in the last two services, and I am expecting that He will continue to honor His Word throughout the week. Pray for the services and join us for worship, if you can.

I do have some ideas for future blog posts, but we will see what time allows. About a year ago, I switched over the the iPad as the primary platform for my sermon note. In coming days, I would like to share with you how I use that amazing tool in preaching, if you are interested. I also have a few thoughts on plagiarism I would like to share with you, among other things.

Thanks for continuing to vist The Sermon Notebook, and this blog. I noticed I have nearly 100 visitors to the blog yesterday, even though I have not posted anything since August. I find that very odd. Of course, there are a number of folks who are on the prowl for things to criticize, may they find all they need to satisfy their baser desires. The Sermon Notebook continues to do well. I praise the Lord for that. We average around 25,000 visitors per day, with more on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I am honored that you take the time to make our ministry a part of your lives.

God bless you all, and thank you for your prayers.

Alan

I praise the Lord for what He is doing at Calvary. Last Wednesday evening, after the service, a fifty something lady in our church came to me to tell me that she wanted to be saved. She was under deep conviction and she bowed before God and called on Him for salvation. On Sunday, she stood and testified about her salvation experience. The Lord swept in and we rejoiced with our new sister in Christ. What makes this lady’s conversion so spectacular is the fact that she has been a member of Calvary since the 60’s, and she always lived a clean, good life. God, in His grace, touched her heart and showed her that she was lost. Thank God she is saved now! Hallelujah!

Then, on Monday, I received a call from a man in the church asking me to call his daughter. I did and she answered the phone and told me that she had been saved as well. This young woman is 20 years old and has been in church all her life. She made a profession at the age of eight, but she was not saved until Monday. Again, I say “Hallelujah!”

I praise the Lord that He is still honoring His Word. I praise Him that He is still convicting sinners and saving them by His grace. I praise Him that in spite of the trials and difficulties of the last 18 months, God is proving Himself greater than all obstacles and opposition. He is adding to His church, just as He said He would.

Rejoice with us in the salvation of these two women. Pray with us that others in our church and community will be saved.

Alan