Prayer before the Sermon II, A Word versus God's Word

I find myself become very aware of all of the evangelical sort of things that we do in a Sunday worship service and how the congregation is supposed to react, and what would happen if we just went about doing business with God without all of the fluff and trapping. This week there was a variation on the prayer before the sermon and it went sort of like this, 'May I decrease and you increase as I bring Your word to Your people." Now all of that sounds really good in an evangelical setting, we expect to hear something more or less like it each Sunday, but what the heck does it mean? Does it mean that sermon preparation really does not matter, or that the way a sermon is presented has nothing to do with the way it is received, or that sermon length is not relevant and one hour sermons are just like sitting on the mountain listening to Jesus preaching? Would we be disappointed if our pastor presented some keen insight into the scripture, howbeit his own insight, not the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What if he delivered a practical message with four steps that we could implement that he has spent years working out in his own life, would we consider that divine instruction in how to live? Why do we demand that every sermon be from the very mouth of God? It seems to me that Jesus was a much better example to us of who God is and what He wants for His creation then reading the bible front to back every year and searching out principles that we can write on index cards and magnet to our refrigerator. And it seems to me that seeing the message and example of Jesus lived out day in and day out in the people around us, pastor included, has much more power to move our own lives in the right direction than all of the evangelical practices. Things like this are nothing more than the Christianized version of political correctness. Let's stop making things out to be more than they really are. Go to work, do your homework, expound the scripture simply and persuasively, tell us about Jesus and the good news of God's love, admit that you may not know everything, give us something practical to do or think about and we will go home with something to draw on. But don't pretend that the sermon is an audience with God and that a prayer makes everything better. It hardly ever does.