Be Who You Is

A simple plea.

If you are a Christian, pay for the music you’ve downloaded. Even if that means going back and deleting music you obtained illegally, or outright deleting it from your system.

If you are a person of faith, don’t cheat on your taxes or manipulate cable access.

And…If you are a minister, don’t preach someone else’s message/sermon and pretend it belongs to you. If you are going to preach someone else’s message, give credit to whom credit is due.

I recently heard a pastor give a message that a good friend of mine (someone completely different) delivered over a year ago. The pastor in question never once gave credit to the one who actually wrote the message (along with specific quotes, stories, and key points). Sitting in the audience, stunned, I thought back to grad school, and the numerous discussions we seminarians held concerning integrity, honesty, and character.

The most important reason for not using someone else’s material often goes unnoticed. To be the minister (or accountant, artist, teacher…etc.) God made you to be, you must develop your own voice. You must learn the art of being the best “you God made you to be,”--to paraphrase my close friend and the one who taught me a great deal about preaching and teaching.

Integrity is the one thing a minister possesses. If she/he loses this, you lose everything.

Coincidentally, I’m going to see the pastor, whose message had been pirated, in a week or so while I’m in Texas. I think my opening line when I see him will be—“I didn’t realize that you could be two places at one time. You cracked the time-travel mystery!”

My college basketball coach used to tell us this bit of advice he once saw on a bathroom stall. “Be who you is. Because when you is who you ain’t, you ain’t.”

Notice the fact that coach told us the source of his street wisdom.