To stand and drone out a sermon in a kind of articulate snoring to people who are somewhat between awake and asleep must be wretched work.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The apostle Paul wrote, "How can people hear without someone preaching to them?" Tim Timmons wonders, "How do we make them even want to hear?"No preacher wants to preach to empty pews or vacant stares.In our day, we cannot assume the sermon will fall upon willing ears. In some circles, sermon is a dirty word. "Don't preach to me!" is practically the motto of a generation. Gone are the days when the great sermons were broadly read and discussed. Today, preachers must capture the ears of the crowd if they will be heard at all among the cacophony of compact discs and Coke commercials.Timmons, immersed in the life of Irvine, California — the capital of Southern California chic — has spied out the unpromising land of secular life. At South Coast Community Church, swirling, shifting, unsettled secularity surrounds him. He knows the ...