Who's Your Favorite Preacher?

“Who’s Your Favorite Preacher?” opens the Christians Gone Wild series by going straight to the root of a problem most churches don’t like to admit. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 1:1–17, this message explores how easily faith can drift from allegiance to Christ into loyalty to personalities, styles, or voices. The church in Corinth wasn’t divided because they stopped believing in Jesus, but because they started organizing their faith around people instead of the cross.

Rather than beginning with correction, Paul starts with identity. He reminds the church who they are before he names what’s going wrong, exposing how spiritual enthusiasm and giftedness can coexist with deep fracture. As Mark Garrett unpacks this passage, the sermon invites listeners to recognize how subtle “I follow ___” thinking still shapes the modern church, often in ways that feel reasonable, even spiritual.

This opening message doesn’t rush to solutions. Instead, it leaves us with the same unsettling question Paul leaves hanging: “Has Christ been divided?” It’s a sermon meant to slow us down, re-center our sense of belonging, and set the tone for a series that will challenge how we read Scripture, how we understand unity, and who we allow to sit at the center of our faith.