Boice on the Essential Nature of Preaching

James Montgomery Boice on the essential nature of preaching for the health and growth of a church: 

"Many things are talked about as necessary for the health and growth of the church today.  People talk about certain programs as essential.  It is true that they are important.  We have such a diversified culture that people have their own individual problems.  The family is fragmented, and the kind of reinforcement along Christian lines that ought to take place in homes does not always take place.  The church is trying to minister specifically at these points through programs.  Still, if you think back to the time of the Great Awakening in this country, you will realize that churches at that time had hardly any programs at all, at least nothing that we would recognize as programs.  There were no youth groups, no graded Sunday schools, no bowling leagues, no baseball teams.  But those churches were healthy.  Why?  Because they had the faithful preaching of the Word."

How many of us would consider a church with faithful preaching and with no Sunday school, no programs, no youth group a successful church? 

The apostles had no Sunday school, no programs, and no youth group, but they had the Spirit and the Word and their churches were on fire for the Lord.

Food for thought about our priorities and the measure of our success.