It seems that the main effort of training of full time Christian workers and in their work on the front-line in local parishes is all about that peak exhibition event "the sermon".
A speech that is neither training nor discussion and certainly rarely educational, or if it is, is mostly promptly forgotten as people walk through the 'sermon erasure portal' at the door out of the auditorium.
But how wrong!
The main effort of the trained staff (full time or part time, employed or members) should be in mentoring, skill building and equipping to live a full span Christian life (Romans 12:1-2).
The Sunday gathering could then revert to the pattern Paul establishes in 1 Corinthians 11-14 where it is a 'joining-in' event, for mutually edification, encouragement, exhortation, prayer and singing (but not a concert...we can have those at other times)
Discussing this with an ex-missionary, ex-FT minister and current field-worker for a mission society; he mentioned that in the churches he worked in in Kenya, the first role to be employed after the parish rector (senior minister) was 'evangelist'.
I think he missed the point.
The first role should be to equip the saints through equipping for ministry themselves, training in Bible, theology, apologetics and 'incidental conversational evangelism'. This by mentoring, in small groups with plenty of discussion and conversation. Not an 'expert' wheeled in from elsewhere to do faith life for them.
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