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TWO PREACHING EXTREMES One of the greatest frustrations of my life and ministry is having to constantly deal with the MYTH of what defines good preaching. Somewhere along the way the devil succeeded in convincing people of two great lies . . . The first lie is that a man is a good preacher, if he's popular. If people like him and he draws a crowd, then that's proof that he's a good preacher. Romans 16:17-18 and Isaiah 30:8-10 destroy that myth, as will a great many other passages when applied. On the other end of the spectrum we have the opposing extreme, the myth that a man is a good preacher, if he makes a lot of noise and excites people. He might be called a "fiery" preacher, a "hell fire and damnation" preacher, or maybe just an "old-time" preacher of the "old-time religion." Maybe he IS a good preacher, but it's not merely because he runs around and yells a lot. Oftentimes a man will enhance his preaching with drama in order to come across as authoritative, when, in reality, he seldom really feeds the sheep with sound doctrine. Instead of really learning anything new, people just hear a new voice screaming out an old truth or an old tradition. Some of that is fine and is to be expected, but that's all that some people ever get, and they are starving spiritually. A good preacher is more than a cheerleader, but it seems that cheerleading is all that some folks want. They just don't call it that. They'll call it good preaching (Isa. 5:20). I've dealt with the camp meeting junkies for many years, and I can assure you that there are at least twenty of them who will USE the Bible like a pom pom to every one who will study and believe it. Most of those people are religious emotionalists who have no true respect for sound DOCTRINE, and they'll mess you up, if you don't keep your guard up. In other words, there's a huge difference between a cheerleader and a COACH. Make no mistake about it, by definition, good preaching is not necessarily popular or dramatic; good preaching is BIBLE preaching where Bible doctrine is acknowledged, respected and declared. It might be popular, or it might not be popular. It might be loud and dramatic, or it might be more quiet and thought-provoking. But it's always BIBLICAL; it always feeds God's people rich truth from God's word instead of merely repeating worn-out religious cliches in exchange for cheap amens. A church isn't a theatre or a circus or a concert hall. A church is a group of Christian soldiers who need to be trained for battle, and this cannot be done by showmen and cheerleaders.