As Kate Shellnut with Christianity Today writes, "Evangelicals under 40 are twice as likely as their seniors to want more substance from the pulpit." She's referring to a new survey on church satisfaction from Grey Matter research group. Not only do 3 in 10 evangelicals want more in-depth teaching, but the strong majority are happy with how their church handles even tougher topics like giving or politics.

It correlates with a 2017 Gallup poll, which showed that 83% of Protestants consider learning about Scripture as the main reason they attend church. That outpaces other worthy things like kids' programming, musical worship, or social opportunities.

Of course, making churchgoers happy isn't the ultimate metric of the Christian faithfulness … but that might be exactly the point. Strategies to make church relevant and interesting have to be grounded in the main thing: the truth of God's word.

Watering it down isn't just unfruitful or unwise: It's a bad retention strategy.