Sermons or "Advice Talks with a Religious Twist"?

Over at this blog I read a comment that really struck me and I think it ties in with some thoughts I have been considering lately. It seems that the Reformed theology is having resurgence. While I appreciate their focus on the glory of God and His Sovereignty I disagree strongly with Calvinism and their eschatology. So while I see some strength in their position I wonder what exactly is attracting or driving so many believers to them.

This is the comment that caught my attention today and I believe is relevant to my current questions:

"Our pastor doesn't proclaim to us what the Bible says and means. The messages are not revelations of the glory of Christ. They are advice-talks with a religious twist."

The key issue revolves around the lack of sound, Christ-centred Bible preaching. In particular it seems to come down to the inherent weakness of "advice talks with a religious twist".

Instead of concrete messages, working through the Scriptures in a systematic and thorough way I see a lot of imbalance, inconsistency and "seeker" sensitiveness.

In my own preaching I am working toward a different model of preaching than I have been using over the past year or so. Instead of most of the time being spent on topical and current event type messages I am focusing on verse-by-verse series and book overviews.

I will still preach topical messages and current event messages, but they will be the exception rather than the rule.

To be honest this is something I have tried to do in the past year, but I have not quite got it right yet. I do believe I am moving in the right direction.

Something I think about a lot is whether I preach standards or principles. While both are necessary I believe teaching the principles are the most important. If I focus on the standards then people may toe the line but never really know or accept why. As soon as the opportunity then comes they reject the standard. If, however, the focus is on the principle then that enables sincere and faithful believers to apply them to varying circumstances and consequently attain the correct standard.

Anyway, those were just some thoughts on preaching I wanted to share.