On the Move or Useless Motion?
Posted by Melvin Jones on January 30th, 2010This is great! I just found out how to be a pastor even if I don’t have the time to study, to pray, or to do any of the things I thought I would have to do if I were to be a shepherd of God’s sheep. I just found out I can BUY sermons - written by someone else; written by someone with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctorate, so I’ll sound really smart.
Click on the thumbnail below and you can find out how to be prepared every single Sunday without once opening your Bible during the week.
Notice the text on the web page. It seems to be pretty much all over the place. He says:
1. The site is for “…busy pastors on the move.” Did it occur to this dingo that if the pastor is so “on the move” that he doesn’t have time to study and prepare a sermon, then perhaps he’s too on the move. Or perhaps he shouldn’t be a pastor.
2. He says the sermons transcend race but describes the sermons as “one of the largest collections of sermons in the African-American pulpit tradition.” And the site’s name is “Black Sermons dot com.” I guess what he means here is he wants to make sure all preachers, Black and White, feel welcome to spend their money on his tripe.
3. If you’re too lazy to do any work at all, you can take part in the quarterly plan and you’ll get a FUNERAL sermon and a free Bible Study. I know I’m impressed. And since most folks don’t generally attend multiple funerals, you can even recycle the funeral sermon. All you have to do is be sure to remember the name of the dearly departed you’re saying goodbye to and not mix it up with the last dearly departed you said goodbye to.
4. And if I’m really lazy and a consummate procrastinator (which, as most of you readers know by now that I am), it seems “Saturday orders are emailed the SAME DAY.” Now I can wait until the very last minute (being on the move all this time) and still get the script for the next day. Ain’t technology wonderful.?
Maybe it’s just me, but I think this is a shame. It is a shame for Dr. Durham to offer the service and it’s a shame for ANY self-respecting pastor – or general preacher – to use such a service. This is even worse (if you can graduate sin) than copying some one else’s term paper. At least with the term paper, you actually make the effort to copy it. With this scam, you don’t even have to make the effort to copy it. It’s delivered to your computer, typed and ready to go.
Of course there are men out there who do use this kind of service. And most of them are, as the good doctor said, on the move all the time. The one that comes most readily to mind is Fast Eddie of Club New Birth in Hotlanta. Do you remember when he stood up and said that he had a message for the congregation FROM the Holy Spirit? Apparently the Holy Spirit had an e-mail for Fast Eddie, not a message for the congregation.
The pastors/elders’ job is to feed the sheep, to aid them in becoming self-sustaining and encourage them to work with each other to accomplish the work that God established for each of us from before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 2:9-10) If they aren’t doing that, then they aren’t doing their jobs. And getting sermons through e-mail rather than study and prayer, doesn’t count.
Even the Apostles recognized this. Take a look at Acts, chapter 6 around verse 2. The Apostles, in trying to deal with an issue that had arisen, made it clear their first duty was to pay attention to the word of God, apparently in its study and preaching. Their first priority was to be preaching and teaching (as was done in the homes of the disciples).
This in no way matches the model being encouraged by Durham. If you’re too busy to study, then let him send you a sermon. Doesn’t it occur to these bozos that if you are too busy to study, you are too busy?
I called Dr. Durham’s business a couple of days ago and I called again today to ask them why they are providing sermons to people to preach as if they were their own. There was no answer the other day. I’ll try again today.
By the way, I can’t even see the sermon before I buy it. But he does provide a sample of his work. Click here for a view.






