“But preaching is more than teaching – not less, but more! Preaching is essentially teaching plus application (invitation, direction, summons), and where that plus is lacking something less than preaching takes place…Many in our churches have never experienced preaching of the historic evangelical sort at all.”

“The community is wonderful;” “There are so many ways to get involved;” “The children’s ministry is great;” “God really seems to be moving here;” “It has such a presence in the community.” These are some of the most common reasons individuals give when asked why they joined a particular church. I rarely hear people say, “We joined our church because it had the most faithful preaching of God’s word that we could find,” or “we loved the ministry of the ordinary means of grace and the biblically informed worship service.” By way of contrast, I have heard many say, “The preaching isn’t the best at our church, but we get fed in our small group. That’s really more of our church;” and “We’re not crazy about the performance in the worship service, but we love the community.” In no rational world would someone ever dream of saying that the competency and skillfulness of a doctor, teacher, lawyer, mechanic, plumber, engineer, banker, athlete or chef didn’t matter. However, individuals functionally say that very things about churches and ministers every time they opt to join a church that is not committed to theologically sound, exegetical, Christ-centered preaching, the ministry of the ordinary means of grace, and biblically informed worship. So, why do multitudes of men and women settle when it comes to the ministry of God’s word? This question obviously has more than one answer; however, consider the following:

In his essay, “From the Scriptures to the Sermon,” J.I. Packer explained the widespread reception of theologically and biblically shallow preaching when he wrote:

“Low expectations become self-fulfilling. Where little is expected from sermons, little is received. Many moderns have never been taught to expect sermons to matter much, and so their habit at sermon time is to relax, settle back and wait to see if anything the preacher says will catch their interest.

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1. Packer, J. I. (1999). Preaching the Living Word (pp. 32–33). Geanies House, Scotland: Christian Focus. 2. Ibid., p. 32