Clowns are people, too. (people who want to hurt you.)

I don't know where this is but they need to review their laws.

The weather here is nothing short of brutal. The local news is full of warnings about outdoor activities, which includes standing. Temps are triple digits - tomorrow we'll hit 110 - and the humidity is running the dew point into the mid-60's, and above 70 in the mornings.

I'd forgotten how much fun it is to mud a ceiling. When they were built these houses all came with evaporative cooling systems. That was before air conditioning was common, so when that was added they removed the evap unit (AKA swamp cooler). The grills in the ceilings were covered with caps...ugly caps. So as part of the popcorn elimination project I'm replacing the 12"x12" caps with a piece of drywall which has to be taped and mudded. That, and the repair of sloppy work that got covered up by the popcorn has been today's major activity. Because it's the law, gravity adds extra fun to ceiling work, and sanding spreads dust everywhere.

I'd never heard of "contact juggling" but this is pretty amazing:
Glass Ball Juggling

The rules re. plagiarism in writing are fairly clear. Much less so in preaching.
"All truth is God's truth" is one of the principles often cited to expand the boundaries of what's acceptable.
I use a variety of commentaries to prepare my messages and feel no obligation to cite them during my sermon. If I were writing a paper I should and would. Which is to say preaching and writing are different when it comes to citing sources.

When I was teaching homiletics I flunked one of my students who preached a Charles Swindoll sermon in class, passing it off as his own. Same points, same illustrations, same conclusion, down to the very words. Clearly plagiarism IMHO. Busted!

What about getting a sermon proposition and main points from someone else's work? Does adding the meat to that skeleton take it out of the realm of plagiarism?
Can a preacher use someone else's illustration freely?
Note: the internet is full of sites with sermon illustrations. Type in the point you're trying to make and choose from a list of options.
Several paid subscription services will send the preacher a number of sermon outlines for each week of the year. He can choose the one that best serves his purposes. Fair game? Or gaming?

When I first entered the ministry I had to prepare a Sunday sermon, an adult Sunday School lesson, a Sunday night sermon/lesson and a Wed. night Bible study. Four preps a week for a rookie! For Sunday nights I often used a Bible study booklet published monthly by Radio Bible Class (now known simply as RBC Ministries). But I felt an obligation to tell that small group of older believers that those booklets formed the basis for my lessons, and they could order them free for further reading. Did I need to share that information?

Twice in the last couple of weeks I've been caused to think about the issue of plagiarism in pastoral ministry. I've concluded that different pastors have different thresholds. What is acceptable to one is plagiarism to another. In some cases it may be a legitimate difference of opinion regarding the guidelines that should govern this sometimes tricky area. But sometimes it just seems like laziness, like pastors using the work of others to avoid the work that should come with this weighty profession.

FWIW