Former SBC President J.D. Greear, the pastor of Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, has given some advice to beleaguered pastors with a few extra bucks in their budget; ‘invest’ in several ‘research assistants’ in order to help write and craft the sermon.
It is unclear if the research assistants are all Summit staffers or if he’s still using Docent hired guns– that infamous company that creates sermons and sermon outlines for pastors. You’ll recall that previously, in a glowing endorsement (that has now been removed but is still available on a Wayback Machine archive), Greear not only admitted that he has used this service, but that he uses it to make him look good.
Docent has been a humongous help to me, saving me literally hours each week and improving the quality of my preaching dramatically. These guys are the real deal. I give them assignments and questions on everything from interpretation to cultural analysis to illustration, and they get me thorough answers, always on time. They are outstanding scholars and really “get” my job as a communicator. I often have people remark to me, “How many hours did you spend on that sermon? Where do you get time to do all that research?” Ha. Thanks, guys for making me look so good!
And to be totally transparent with our listeners here, now that I, you know, we have a larger staff, some of this is easier because I can actually appoint people. I can- to give people like, hey, I want you to go listen to this text by and we have a list of like 30 preachers, I’m like ‘just go find where any of these people have talked on this text and let’s just use five or six of them that look really interesting’.
So I will actually sit down to what is a ‘digested outline‘…And that’s really helpful, it means I can do it a lot more quickly. But I will say before I had the resources to do that team, I just, I did it almost all myself.
He continues:
Between between my notes, my compilation as well as what now happens through some research assistants, I will just spend that time on Monday morning. One more thing, just for people that are early in the process, what I would do is, if I knew I was going to preach on John 4 in in three weeks, because I’m working my way through John, three or four weeks before, I just spend an afternoon collecting a lot of those sermons, you know, online, you know, DVDs, whatever, stuff.
So and I would just start, like using devotional reading, you know, an hour a day or so, getting ready for this thing that was three or four weeks away. So it’s harder if you don’t have research assistants. At some point as gives you the resources, I’d encourage you to invest in some of that, it will help. But it’s possible to do when it’s just you.”
We (his 8 member preaching team) meet on Monday afternoon. And all the members of the preaching team which we’ll talk about later, they come together, they have been studying the same text and we work on it now. Actually, the interesting thing was that’s become so helpful for me, is that I got an email Monday evening from the preaching team, they went over the text without me. Which was awesome, this is what we do.
And I said, alright, I need to know, and here’s where I’m thinking–in a letter–I just said ‘you guys tear it apart, tell me where I’m wrong, tell me what you think is best” And language, we talk about language, we talk about tone, all those things cause they’re all younger.
And so that week, actually I had a little bit of study to do in between killing pheasants and taking pictures… I literally walked to the church and filmed it.
With the recently unearthed find that a prominent pastor has come out in support of the sermon factory that is “Ministry Pass,” describing the act of “borrowing” or “stealing sermons” as ‘just good stewardship” according to a post by Reformation Charlotte that brought this to our attention, we figured it was worth delving a bit more into this.
The comments were made by Mark Batterson, the lead pastor at National Community Church, a multisite megachurch in Washington DC. Batterson is perhaps best known for his mega-popular mystical/gnostic screed The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears. During a promo video he said the following:
Here’s the bottom line. Church ought to be the most creative place on the planet [which explains his creative theology]. I believe that. I also believe that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You know, you can’t come up with an original idea every single week.
Sometimes, it’s just good stewardship to beg, borrow, and steal from someone else. There’s some incredible ideas and one of the things I appreciate is that Ministry Pass is really a clearinghouse where you can take an illustration or a graphic or an entire series, put your fingerprint on it, and leverage it in your church. And so a huge thanks to my friends at Ministry Pass.
As far as what it looks like, a company like Ministry Pass has over a thousand series available covering all the books of the bible, ranging from a 4-week trip through the book of Jude to a 50-week sermon series through the book of Acts.
If 50 weeks through Acts is too long and you don’t want to go through verse by verse, you can pick multiple 6-week sermons to preach, or perhaps pluck topical sermons within the book of Acts, each one with sermon illustrations, graphics, social media art, and points to consider.
Along with the sermon series, they have videos, countdowns, and other goodies. Unlike Docent, which is far more specialized, individualistic, and expensive, with services running into the tens of thousands of dollars, Ministry Pass, which was founded by Justin Trapp and Wade Bearden, can be yours for the low price of $69 a month, or $649 annually.
In this case, we’re going to review a one-week sermon on Samson, as part of the Heroes of the Faith series. We didn’t have to pick the Heroes of the Faith series, as there were different options with different slants/ perspectives.
Those were mostly standalone messages. We also could have discussed him within multiple sermon series on the book of Judges, where he makes an appearance in chapters 15 and 16.
The series includes a bunch of graphics and videos that can be shared on different social media sites.
Here is an example of a lesson we purchased:
The Story of Samson
Big Idea of the Series: This one-week sermon looks at the story of Samson. His story is a mix of great strength and great weakness, but it’s ultimately a story of God’s faithfulness and his ability to use us in spite of our shortcomings.
Big Idea of the Message: From conception, Samson had everything he needed to fulfill his calling, but because of compromise and rebellion, he faced failure. Even so, God was gracious and willing to restore Samson, even at his lowest point.
Application Point: Repentance does not remove all consequences of sin, but God stands ready to restore the penitent sinner to a full relationship with him.
Sermon Ideas and Talking Points:
Samson’s miraculous birth to a barren woman was foretold by the angel of the Lord, who left strict instructions concerning his upbringing as a Nazirite especially devoted to God. The Nazirite vow allowed for the consecration of any Israelite to a special time of devotion to the Lord. In addition to the laws that applied to all Israelites, a Nazirite “shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine” (Numbers 6:4), “shall let the locks of hair of his [or her] head grow long” (v. 5), and “shall not go near a dead body” (v. 6). These additional rules were necessary to prevent the Nazirite from becoming unclean and thereby unfit for the unfettered fellowship with God that the Nazirite vow represented (Webb, Book of Judges, 351). The Nazirite vow was usually temporary, but God’s special purpose for Samson’s life required him to serve as a lifelong Nazirite, even in his mother’s womb (Judges 13:3–5).
The story of Samson’s birth parallels the birth of the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai. Israel was also consecrated to God, heard his voice, and received special rules to live by and a calling to fulfill (Exodus 19:9–19). Like Manoah and his wife, God gave his children every advantage in life. But like Samson, Israel treated their blessings as curses, desiring instead to integrate with the surrounding nations.
Like Israel as a whole, Samson treated his special status with contempt. He completely ignored both his Nazirite vow and the regulations of the Sinaitic covenant. “Samson again goes to Timnah to complete the wedding plans and claim his bride. He decides to turn from the road to see the lion’s dead carcass. Now he is intentionally coming in contact with death, a clear volitional violation of his Nazirite vow [Numbers 6:6]. … Returning home, Samson becomes even more disruptive in his own family. Not only will he not accede to his parents’ wedding wishes. Not only does he hide from them the breaking of his Nazirite vow. Now he deliberately leads them to break their own commitments to Israel’s covenant laws by eating something that has come in contact with a dead animal [Leviticus 11:24–25, 39]. Samson has leadership ability, but it is directed for the wrong purposes and blinded by pure self-interest” (Trent C. Butler, Judges, Word Biblical Commentary 8 [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009], 335–36, Logos).
“Samson has always been in rebellion against his separation to God. He has never wanted to fight the Philistines as he was destined to do. He has wanted to mix with them, intermarry with them, and party with them. … But his separateness has always caught up with him, and turned his relationships with the Philistines sour. It is the Spirit that has propelled him into conflict with them. When he wanted to stop (15:7), he was not allowed to; the men of Judah took him out of hiding, and the Spirit had seized him and thrust him into battle with the Philistines again (15:14). And after that there had been no turning back. … He had to fight them, but it was never what he wanted” (Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012], 405–6, Logos). God did not force Samson to rebel, but he did use Samson’s rebellion to advance his own purposes to deliver Israel from the Philistines.
Samson was not the only one in the story to reject God’s calling on his life. The entire tribe of Judah ignored the divine mandate to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, instead betraying the very man God had called to lead and deliver them. “To fully grasp the significance of what is happening we need to reflect on how the book opened. There a united Israel inquired of Yahweh about how they should proceed in carrying out the mandate Joshua had given them to complete the conquest of Canaan. The answer was that the tribe of Judah should lead them, and that if it did so, victory was assured (1:1–2). Now here in chapter 15 there is no seeking direction from God and no victory. Israel’s subjection to the Philistines is accepted as an established fact. There is no cry for deliverance. The only person who fights the Philistines is Samson, and he does so only when his attempt to intermarry with them is thwarted. And although he is destined eventually to begin to save Israel, the men of Judah (yes, Judah!) see him only as a threat to the status quo, and arrest him in order to hand him over to their Philistine masters. What a fall there has been from the expectations with which the book began! The whole downward spiral of the central part of the book reaches rock bottom here. Surely only a remarkable act of God can save Israel now” (Webb, Book of Judges, 384).
“Can vital boundaries of the faith be violated with impunity? Does sin not have any consequences? Can one dance on the edge of unbelief and play with the power of God and remain safe? May one sin if one repents just in time? Apart from [Judges] 16, chapters 13–15 might seem to say ‘Yes.’ … The book of Judges has relentlessly linked Israel’s sin to consequent oppression by pagan powers, stressing that sin has consequences—a point so far absent from Samson’s story. He seems to violate divine boundaries with impunity, at least until chapter 16, which picks up this theme. The ambivalence of chapters 14–15 breaks down unambiguously in 16:1–31” (Lawson G. Stone, “Judges,” in Joshua, Judges & Ruth, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary 3 [Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2012], 422, Logos).
“Samson was fatally unwise in sharing his secret with Delilah. His willingness to do so seems traceable to his lack of appreciation of two things: One, he failed to appreciate his personal calling by God, and two, the fact that his strength lay solely in God’s power working through him as a holy instrument. These are the same failures that Israel manifested, and which resulted in her experiencing a fate similar to Samson’s, during the period of the judges. They have caused many other servants of God to fall since Samson’s day, too” (Thomas L. Constable, Notes on Judges [2020], 172, https://planobiblechapel.org/tcon/notes/pdf/judges.pdf).
Having hit rock bottom, Samson finally yielded to the Lord’s will. His hair began to grow back, but his strength did not return with his hair. His hair growing back symbolizes the restoration of his relationship with God, not the restoration of his strength. He remained blind and weak until he cried out to the Lord. His self-centered focus on revenge still served as his motivation. He wanted to avenge his gouged-out eyes, but the Lord wanted to free the Israelites from oppression. Still, Samson’s humiliation cured his prideful self-reliance and forced him to recognize that the Lord was and had always been the source of his strength. When he turned to Lord and learned to fully rely on him, his strength returned.
The story of Samson ends with a note of hope, both for apostate Israel and for all of God’s wayward children. God’s purposes cannot be thwarted by human sin. Our shame does not diminish his power. God is in control and will accomplish everything he says, through us or in spite of us. It may be a painful journey, but in the end God’s promises will prevail.
Following the message, there are also additional resources like Bible study questions and curricula.
At the beginning of each sermon series, there is a little disclaimer which states:
This is all well and good. However; many of the sermon plans are much longer, and suppose a pastor wanted to preach that 50 week Acts sermon series in 25 weeks, they could literally add 3-5 minutes of commentary and filler and be done. They could add a few personal observations on a point or two and have a wholly unoriginal sermon in a little under 15 minutes, yet one designed by experts to punch above its weight.
For men like Batterson and a thousand other pastors, this is about best thing ever.
(Evangelical Dark Web) This article is part of Evangelical Dark Web’s series called Docent Dumps where pastors and churches who use Docent Research Group are being exposed. This article exposes Bob McCartney of First Baptist Church Wichita Falls, Texas as a client of Docent Research Group.
Origin
The Ed Litton plagiarism scandal has revealed just how vast and industrialized sermons are. A company by the name of Docent Research Group was identified to being a kingpin of (errant) teaching in the church. Predictably such a centralization of church material was ripe for corruption and Docent Research Group has a Social Justice Gospel agenda. This was exposed in the initial Protestia article on the subject. This article continues this coverage by exposing a prominent Southern Baptist church using Docent Research Group. This information was found researching the employees of Docent Research Group. An employee by the name of Greg Lamb mentioned multiple clients he worked with as a “Solo Researcher” at Docent. There is considerable existing evidence that suggesting that Docent Research Group writes sermons, and Greg Lamb adds to this account.
Abstract
FBC Wichita Falls is an influential megachurch in the Southern Baptist Convention. It is a particularly impactful church in the Texas Baptist community. On paper FBC Wichita Falls is the least woke church covered in the Docent Dumps series. However, this church is a force for evil in SBC politics. The use of Docent Research Group by Dr. Bob McCartney and FBC Wichita Falls is evident that this megachurch is highly influenced by Big Eva within the SBC.
Greg Lamb
Greg Lamb is an employee or contractor of Docent Research Group, and he is the source for the North Valley Community Church being a Docent client. “I continued serving in both a solo and team leader research role with Pastor Dr. Bob McCartney of FBC Wichita Falls, TX, a seminal SBC church with over 2,000 members (http://www.fbcwf.org). In all these roles, I essentially serve as an extension to the preaching ministry of these growing churches through providing research, exegesis, and connective tissue to help bring God’s Word to life and resonate with contemporary culture.” This the pastor listed by Greg Lamb. After establishing enough trust to work on his own with North Valley Community Church, Greg Lamb’s gig with Docent Research Group improved to being a team leader in handling his largest client yet, FBC Wichita Falls.
First Baptist Church Wichita Falls
FBC Wichita Falls is a multicampus megachurch with at or around 2000 members at three locations. This church could be seen as a pipeline to…
(Reformation Charlotte) In the midst of the exposure of the largest Evangelical plagiarism scandal in modern times, it has become increasingly clear that the vast majority of the leadership in the Evangelical world are frauds. From the newly-elected Southern Baptist president, Ed Litton, who has been criticized for his serial plagiarism of former president, JD Greear–dating back as far as 2013 from what we have discovered–to JD Greear himself, nothing could be more clear than that God’s judgment is on the Southern Baptist Convention.
Some astute watchdogs have uncovered that this scandal runs deep, far, and wide. In an interview with Jim Osman that was published last night, Justin Peters revealed that many Evangelical leaders have been purchasing sermons from a research group that prepares sermon materials for a wide range of Evangelical pastors regardless of doctrinal convictions. That research group is called Docent.
According to Docent’s website, the group “partners with pastors to provide research assistance to lighten their load and help them serve their churches more effectively, ” and will “assist with both sermon and sociological research, offering consultations with experienced ministry leaders, and producing curriculum.” Further, Docent will “carefully pair graduate-level researchers…
To continue reading all about JD Greear’s use of their service, click here.
Editor’s Note. This article was written by Jeff Maples and published at Protestia.
