'People in our society do not just want intellectual propositions. For them, life's meaning is grounded in what they experience. If we understand that the purpose of preaching is not only to make the truth clear but also to make the truth real to the hearts of listeners, we will have the kind of preaching that is committed to obkective truth and, at the same time, deeply experiential.
The "informational" view of preaching conceives of preaching as changing people's lives after the sermon. they listen to the sermon, take notes, and then apply the biblical principles during the week. But this approach assumes that our main problem is a lack of compliance to biblical principles, when, as we saw above, all our problems are actually due to a lack of joy and belief in the gospel. Our real problem is that Jesus' salvation is not as real to our hearts as the significance and security our idols promise us. If that's our real problem, then the purpose of preaching is to make Christ so real to the heart that during the sermon we have an experience of his grace, and false saviors that drive us lose their power and grip on us at that moment. That's the "experiential" view of preaching.'
Timothy Keller, Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Urban Centers, p.10.
