When sermons start where people live - their questions, struggles, and concerns - and then offer a timely and helpful word from the Scriptures, people are more interested in hearing what else the Scriptures have to say.
One thing that helps to stretch me is to listen to other preacher's sermons. Every year, I will listen to at least ten other preachers, both to hear God speak to me, and also to evaluate their preaching to see what I can learn and how I can improve my own preaching.
But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the domination of political and religious prejudices; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon.
In my neighborhood, everyone had an opinion on the local cantor. You didn't go to a synagogue to listen to the rabbi's sermon. You went to listen to the cantor. It was like a concert.
In the real world, I see conservatives volunteering at adoption agencies, at churches, at bake sales and the local American Legion Post while the only charity a progressive sends is a smug sermon on fair share and what fairness is.
Forgiveness became a big part of the civil rights movement, juxtaposed against the violence of protesters and law enforcement. King described forgiveness in one of his early sermons as a pardon, a process of life, and the Christian weapon of social redemption.