The title above is from a chapter in Duin's book about why people leave churches. And while I appreciate her efforts, I am afraid she barely scratches the surface.
I spent more than sixty years of my life in churches, usually there every Sunday. In all that time, if I were to count the sermons that actually made a difference in my life, I would not even need all ten fingers. The sad truth is, most sermons are made to follow custom, but they are not particularly effective. Most local ministers are not particularly great orators. I have known one who routinely took 45 minutes to preach about 25 minutes' worth of material. He apparently did not plan his introduction and conclusion. So he would get up and start speaking, wandering around for 10 minutes or more to find his way into his sermon outline. And at the end he would wander around for 10 or 15 minutes trying to finish it. I also knew a man who talked so fast that he could get through a half-hour sermon in twenty minutes.
During my time in Bible college, in the chapel services we heard almost all of the local preachers in the area, and many of the "Big Men in the Brotherhood." One of the latter group was either so proud of one of his messages, or just didn't keep track of when and where he had used it, and preached the exact same sermon at our chapel three years in a row. The professor who taught public speaking and homiletics (how to preach) had an impressive voice and was a dramatic speaker; I would have to say his content was not nearly as impressive as his delivery.
From what I have seen of Bible colleges, the professors of Bible and theology got most of the glory on campus. But over the years, I have reached the conclusion that the greatest mind of all the men I studied under was John Richardson, the head of the education department. He taught everything from an introductory course that was required for every major to small specialty classes of a dozen students or so. But one of his mantras was "What's the worst method of teaching? The one that's used ALL THE TIME." Where he had to, he lectured; in the smaller groups, he preferred back-and-forth discussion. He had a tendency to think outside the box, and take different approaches to topics.
So, in most churches, what is the method that is used all the time? The sermon. And even a lot of Sunday school classes use the lecture method, at least past the primary school age classes.
Add in the sad fact that most students in Bible colleges and seminaries are not the greatest scholars--the few who are usually end up as professors rather than local ministers. I studied under some serious scholars; one of my New Testament professors was part of the group who produced the original NIV translation of the Bible. But the vast majority of local ministers are not great brains. They may be good Christians, trying to do their job well; but intellectually, they are average at best.
One issue Duin mentioned was pastors downloading someone else's sermon outlines from the Internet, rather than composing sermons themselves. That is just the latest version of an old custom. Fifty years ago you could buy books of sermon outlines in the bookstore at my Bible college. Those books would never have been published unless there was a demand for them. But using borrowed material does not make one a better preacher--as one pastor she talked to put it, "If you do this regularly, your brain shrivels up."
One thing I have observed throughout my life: people try to spend their lives doing or teaching what they learned when young. I have seen professors who apparently had not learned much since they finished grad school. (By the time they get into their 70s they may be clueless about what is going on now!) I have worked with carpenters who were still mostly doing things the way they learned when they started out--and had a lot of trouble with new ideas or new materials (that is a major reason why home construction has not changed all that much in the last fifty years!) And you can count on many local pastors going through their career the same way--it seems to be a common thing in human nature.
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