I am dreading the day when, in the middle of some anecdote, a visitor jumps up and yells, "Hey, I heard that sermon last year. My pastor preached it! "

I just know that a lynch mob will be formed immediately; my elders and deacons will hold the rope, while one of our older ladies knits away, mumbling "guillotine" under her breath.

The fact is, everything I preach is stolen. Some of it from other thieves. It occurs to me that I may not have had an original thought in years. Of course, that thought is not original either.

Book after book, article after article, I read these incredibly brilliant ideas and find them a few weeks later creeping into my messages. At first, I didn't really notice. I actually thought that I might be responsible for a few of the better thoughts expressed from the pulpit. Yet just as soon as I re-read a book I had not touched for years, I would come across that same, brilliant, original insight. Not mine.

In the beginning, I tried to hide it. I would read the latest ...