This unique ministry, “TheGospelPreached.org,” presents a number of ethical considerations. I’d like to address four of these issues and provide our perspective:

1. Copyright and intellectual property
2. Handling content within limited or smaller contexts
3. Given that this ministry publishes content from other ministries, how should we handle contributions?
4. The curation process and content bias

Copyright and Intellectual Property

The secular laws that govern the handling of republished internet content have been in place for some time and are mature. We adhere to all these laws, with the following principles serving as our guide:

1. We must properly credit the creator of the video. We have to credit the content’s original author.
2. We will abide by any additional copyright and data privacy and protection regulations specific to the content provider.
3. Without the creator’s consent, we cannot “clone” a video they have placed online and post it on our website. We are allowed to embed the video on our website and play it with the YouTube embedded video player if the video’s owner has granted permission for embedding.

Laws are subject to change over time. We are dedicated to keeping up with changes to the law and putting them into effect as soon as they happen. As a faith-based entity, we will also adhere to other rules that are not necessarily legally binding but that we feel are morally binding.

1. We will not publish snippets of content that might distort the original author’s intended message.
2. We notify the creators of the content that we’ve posted and give them an opportunity to address anything they see as inappropriate or illegal.

Handling Content Within Limited or Smaller Contexts

Context is crucial when reading, hearing, or viewing the sermonized material. The significance of comprehending the context of scripture or a message is a point that preachers consistently emphasize. However, from time to time, we will highlight specific passages or narratives from sermons that address a particular issue or theme we are emphasizing. We will also occasionally combine ‘excerpts’ from a variety of sermons and messages that align with a specific issue or theme.

We want to be clear that we are not allowed to duplicate any part of the content or the entire video. We can reference a portion of content by designating a beginning and an ending point in the video that we want the audience to see, as well as giving the video player instructions to start and stop playing at those points. When we direct people to ‘snippets’ of a video, we will always keep the entire video accessible and allow the viewer to rewind to any point in the video to understand the context of the segment we presented. If we play or reference only a part of a video, we will always explicitly state that it is part of the entire message and allow the viewer to choose to listen to the entire message.

We will allow the preacher or ministry—the original source of the message—to comment on the content and website. They may occasionally correct us, and we will gratefully accept and incorporate these corrections. In cases where they have concerns about our classifications and the way we display the content, we will always provide the content viewer with access to the originator’s viewpoint.

The Freedom or Free-ness of the Gospel

We are a non-profit entity, and our website is not for profit. We understand that the ministries that produce publicly available online content frequently use it to collect offerings and fund their ministries. The gifts that their content generates also frequently help the pastors who dedicate their lives to teaching us God’s word. We also understand that individuals who make offerings to ministries do so to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and provide ministry services to those who cannot financially contribute.

We will not accept donations from viewers but will instead direct them to the websites of the content owners and encourage them to donate to their ministries. To facilitate donations to these ministries, we will include links to the websites of the ministries that provide the content. We will track the number of contributions we direct to our contributors’ websites to gauge our effectiveness, but we will not directly solicit funds on behalf of those ministries.

We are currently privately funded by individuals and organizations who believe in our mission and support it through donated labor hours, technology, services, and funds. In the future, we plan to sell merchandise to fund our website, with 100% of the proceeds from the sales going to keeping the website online. Occasionally, we will release our own podcasts and potentially encourage donations from listeners who find inspiration in the specific content of our podcasts, treating our content just like the content of the ministries we curate from.

The Curation Process and Content Bias

We make no claims of providing unbiased content. All individuals and ministries have a point of view. We believe God gives us all a point of view, a perspective born out of our individuality, and our life’s vision and purpose emerge from the unique viewpoints and passions that God gives each of us. My personal story is that self-love and healthy self-esteem emerged as soon as I began to value my uniqueness. It was only then that my life’s purpose and my vision began to come to pass. I also gained the freedom to let other people be themselves without comparison, envy, or demands that they adopt my ideals and points of view.

Our purpose in being interdenominational and inclusive of all sizes of churches, geographies, and ethnicities is to demonstrate our belief that we can all be different while still being a unified body of Christ. Despite our efforts to be inclusive, our biases will be evident in the categories we use to classify content, the specific content we curate, and the values we uphold as an organization.

The sermons presented by each of the content providers we select will reflect a variety of viewpoints. Instead of creating “groupthink,” our ministry aims to unite the diverse viewpoints of the curator (us) and all of the contributors (the ministries) to create a singular, unique whole that has never been seen before. As the curator, our perspectives are evident in the categories and themes under which we classify content: ‘Abundant Life, ‘Calling and Purpose,’ ‘Grace and the Cross,’ ‘The Church and the World,’ ‘The Holy Spirit,’ etc. In and of themselves, the categories reflect a point of view of what we think is important for a believer of Jesus Christ, so to claim to be without bias is a self-deception.

We anticipate accusations of bias in the content we curate or choose not to curate, and we expect this to occur throughout our journey. We will always consider the input of church leadership and the community we serve but will always retain the right to choose what we do or do not curate. Even in the freedom to choose, we submit ourselves to the Body of Christ through alignment with the core beliefs of the Christian faith.

Core Beliefs

A follower of Christ ought to have a solid foundation of convictions regarding the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. These are our core beliefs:

1. We believe that there is one, and only one, God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, the creator and owner of heaven and earth, who existed before heaven and earth were created and who will exist after heaven and earth pass away. We believe him not to be a manifestation of a force or element of nature, but the creator of all forces and elements of nature, over which He has complete control. We believe that He is perfect, possesses all wisdom, is loving beyond the comprehension of mankind, and created the heavens, Earth, and mankind out of love and generosity. We affectionately refer to him as God the Father.
2. We believe that Jesus is the son of God who was sent into the world to reconcile all of mankind to God, and his arrival was prophesied and pointed to in the Old Testament of the Bible. He is “the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world.” We believe he is God in fleshly form, has the exact nature of God the Father, and that you can know the nature and character of God the Father by learning the deeds and teachings of Jesus Christ.
3. We believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and that God punished Jesus with the punishment that all of mankind deserves for our behaviors and separation from our creator.
4. We believe that Jesus was raised from the dead by God and is at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf, that all power in Heaven and Earth was given to him, and that one day He will return to Earth again to rule.
5. We believe that God so loved the world that he sent his Son, Jesus, to voluntarily die as atonement for the sins of the world, and that whoever believes in the Son, all that He taught and spoke while on this earth, will not perish but have everlasting life. And that upon this wholehearted and open confession of belief, a person is born again by the power of the Holy Spirit and justified by God, meaning that their past and future sins are not counted against them by God and that the goodness of God will lead them to a change of thinking and a change of behavior that gradually makes them more like God in thinking and behavior. And that those who are born again also receive an opportunity for abundant life on this Earth, now, when they follow the teachings and principles of Jesus Christ.
6. We believe that the Holy Spirit was sent to Earth to be with us as a comforter and guide while Jesus is not here, at least until Jesus returns again and possibly even after his second coming.
7. We believe that whoever accepts Jesus as their lord and savior becomes part of an institution called The Church, which is made up of all believers in Christ, no matter where they live, what race they were born to, what denomination they belong to, or what time in history they might have lived.
8. We hold that the Bible is the inspired, infallible word of God, written and curated by men and women under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
9. We believe that Christians will disagree, just as Paul and Apollos or Peter and Paul did at the beginning of the Church, but these disagreements do not exclude any denomination from the body of Christ. Furthermore, we believe that any denominations that claim to be the only source of truth and that people who belong to Christian denominations other than their own are not Christians are misguided and should be avoided. Consequently, a common set of core beliefs preserves the Body’s unity, despite potential variances in the interpretation of scriptures, religious rituals, and political points of view.