Liam Goligher moved not too long ago from the UK to the USA to become pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
He was asked recently (video below) to compare preaching in the USA with preaching in the UK. He had some cutting comments:
Especially expository preaching in the UK has been reduced to what's described very often as a Bible talk, it's like a Bible class talk, with one main point, an opening illustration, a closing moral application, and this is among the most conservative groups in England. So to come to a church here ... and to have people who actually believe that preaching is a divine act, it's God's speech to his people, gathered in covenant assembly, and they're here to hear from the throne, as it were, from God—that is not a perception or a point of view that you would find at most places in the UK.
Why is that?
In some conservative Anglican circles there has been influence from Australia, from the Australian view that there is no such thing as public worship. So, once you remove the concept of public worship, when the assembly is meeting, when the gathering is there—very often just referred to as "the meeting"—it is for fellowship, maybe for Bible study, mostly for evangelism. ...
[Preachers] don't have any sense that they are the messengers of God. [Preaching] is an entirely horizontal, education means. And that view is now dominant in a lot of conservative evangelical circles in England.
His comments might not be entirely fair, but they do ring true to an uncomfortable degree.
Reminded me of a talk by Robert Rayburn from 1996 entitled Preaching as a Mystical Event, which I listened to not very long ago.
Here's the video (full set of videos is on the Westminster Theological Seminary site):