Preaching in the "seeker-friendly" church

While today's growth-driven churches do their best to shorten sermons and spice them up with drama, videos, and comedy, numerous Emergent churches are equally afraid to just preach the Word (as Paul urged Timothy). Rather than have an "authority figure" stand up and give a "lecture", these Emergents will circle the pews (couches actually) around the "leader" and join-in with him, stating their own opinions of what they think about the bible. The concept goes like this: No one person has anything more important to say than any other person in the room, everyone has equal value, so everybody should get to express themselves. What a change from days of the great revivals when lands were set ablaze by the spirit-lead preaching of the Word. In the 19th century, R.L. Dabney wrote -
"All the leading Reformers, whether in Germany, Switzerland, England or Scotland were constant preachers, and their sermons were prevalently expository"; the purpose was to explain the meaning of Scripture. So he says, "We can assume with safety that the instrumentality to which the spiritual power of the great revolution of the Reformation - was mainly due to the restoration of scriptural preaching". Take the next 6 minutes to listen to an audio presentation on how the Reformers preached. ...