Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2011, Page 11

Anna Carter Florence, Columbia Theological Seminary
Preaching in a Recession:
Rick Warren, Charlemagne, Survivorman and You
Last fall, I went to Wisconsin and spent three days in three different cities
with pastors from all over the state. It was a wonderful trip: I met great
people, and I learned a lot. One afternoon in Appleton some pastors and I
were talking about preaching and the internet, and all the stuff that’s avail-
able to us these days with just a few clicks, and how tempting that stuff can
be when we’re tired, and how hard it is to sort through the plagiarism issues;
and a pastor stood up and asked us a question. “I know about plagiarism,”
he said, “but what do you think of preachers who encourage others to preach
their sermons? Take Rick Warren, for example. If you go to the Saddleback
Church website, you can download Pastor Rick’s sermons for a small fee, and
use them devotionally or preach them yourself, to your own congregation.
You can even subscribe, and get those sermons every week. So if Rick Warren
is okay with us preaching his sermons, if he doesn’t mind - should we?”
What a great question. And, it seems, a historical question. Because at
that moment, I suddenly remembered: we are not the first persons to ask
this. Preachers have been asking if they could get a little help, please, with
their sermons, since Jesus gave the great commission, to go forth, baptize,
teach, preach, every week, again and again! There has never been enough time
to do it all, and we have always wanted to borrow someone else’s sermons.
Someone with a track record, you know? Like Augustine.
But it is one thing to be invited to borrow, and another thing to be told
to do it. By the emperor. Okay: this is an unusual move for me. I do not
normally make excursions into the deep historical past, and as my friends
will tell you, I am not the first person to call when you have a pressing
need to know, right now, which pope presided over the Arian controversy.
I can look it up, but it isn’t immediately accessible in short-term memory.
At that moment in Appleton, Wisconsin, however, I had what can only be
called a blast from the past.
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