That sermon last Sunday?

[MineralMan]

Odds are good that almost identical ones were delivered in many churches by their pastors. It used to be that pastors had a few books on their shelves full of sermon ideas, great illustrative stories, suggested Bible readings, etc. they could draw on to get ready for filling 10 or 15 minutes in next Sunday's service. Not every church's pastor can come up with the right idea for something to say 52 times a year.

Now, in the Internet age, it's way easier. A simple Google search, like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sermon+ideas

will deliver an almost endless list of sites full of great, proven sermon topics and all the goodies needed to keep congregations focused on the message. The idea isn't new, but the delivery system is larger and easier to access. You can find the sermon you need, sorted by the liturgical calendar, subject, theme, or just about any other way.

Now, a pastor needs to bookmark sermon sites that go along with his denomination's talking points, of course. A Southern Baptist pastor wouldn't want to deliver a sermon found on a Congregationalist-oriented website, but that's not too difficult. So, at your Christmas Eve service, or any other time of year, there are probably other congregations getting a sermon that is virtually identical to the one you'll hear at your home church.

[Siwsan]

1. There was a priest at my parent's church who used props in his sermon

The sermons were usually relatively brief, entertaining because they kept the attention of the children, hit a very contemporary note with current events and managed to make you think.

Some of the more traditional parishioners did not care for this, at all. The few times I heard one of his sermons, I was impressed. He later left the church to marry, and then became an Episcopalian priest.

As a side note, when my Aunt died, I needed someone to perform a graveside service (her funeral mass as several weeks later). The priest from her parish wasn't available so they offered to contact this priest. He gave a lovely service. (I used to be very fluid between the RC and Episcopalian churches, so I didn't see a problem with this.)

One of my more inflexible cousins was pretty shocked that I crossed denominational lines for this service, but the rest were totally won over by this man's caring and thoughtful service.

[Cartoonist]

2. Father McKenzie

writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear. No one comes near

[MineralMan]

3. There you go...

"Eleanor Rigby" is from my favorite Beatles period. Thanks!

[Igel]

4. Some do, some don't.

My church has a pastor on church pension who runs things as though he were still on the payroll and gives a number of sermons as well as a system of lay elders that volunteer for sermons.

Last Sabbath a lay elder walked us through the "Lord's prayer" and connected it line by line to the festivals in Leviticus. From forgiveness at Passover, asking for our daily (unleavened) bread, the "last trump" and "thy kingdom come", driving away the scapegoat and being delivered from the evil (one), and sukkoth towards the end.

Did a quick search just now. Didn't find anything similar to it, which I think moderately surprising.

A lot of denominations had sermon manuals issued with topics or even texts for each service throughout the year, esp. useful for new or tired pastors. Some even go one step further, and send out centrally-written sermons to their pastors on a weekly basis. The pastors are usually authorized to chuck them and use their own, but sometimes certain ones are required or they're required for certain ministers. Went to my MIL's mainline sort-of-but-not-quite-left-of-center church where the pastor said he usually chucked them, but liked the one he got that week better than the one he'd planned and so he'd give it. It surprised a lot of the people who didn't realize their denomination with 32 thousand congregations did that.


It's easier for Googling sermon topics if you're in a mainstream denomination. Harder if you're an outlier. My church has 200 congregations or so in the US.

[MineralMan]

5. Well a search for sermon plagiarism sure turns up

a lot of interesting links. Apparently it's fairly common out there. And that's not all too surprising. It would be tough for many people to come up with an original sermon that many times a year. Not all pastors have oratorical gifts, I assume. Then, too, the subject matter is fairly limited, really. Despite the length of the Bible, most of it is not really fodder for preaching.

And then, there's the busy schedule some pastors maintain. That puts a lot of pressure on them to come up with a compelling 15 minutes every week. I used to be up in front of a crowd fairly frequently, and eventually got used to the pressure of holding an audience's attention and providing some useful information to them. But that took quite some time, really, to learn the ropes of effective public speaking. I don't do that any more, though.

The temptation must be enormous, though, with almost an endless supply of sermons published online. The odds of being detected for plagiarizing someone else's sermons would seem to be quite small, although not infinite, by any means.

Those searches were very interesting. Apparently ministers do get caught doing this. Since it's become so common for churches to post the sermons of the week on their websites and even to archive them for easy access, it's fairly easy for someone to see whether a particular sermon is unique or mostly identical with another one somewhere online.

I just find it interesting.