“I know I’m preaching to the choir now!”
Pastors will say this for a few reasons. First, they don’t want to sound patronizing: “I know you already know and agree with this!” Second, they’re feeling insecure about saying something that feels obvious, and they don’t want to seem “un-insightful.” So it has the effect, “Please don’t tune out! I know you’ve heard this before.” Third, they appropriately want the listeners to feel like insiders: “People like us believe and do things like this.”
We often use the phrase “the choir” not in reference to the literal choir (which most churches don’t have anymore), but in reference to the committed, regular attendees of the church who do, in effect, address one another in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.
I’m sympathetic to all those reasons and have made use of similar pastoral contextualizations and caveats. However, they reveal a fatal assumption that pastors cannot buy into: that the majority of the regular church attendees agree with the Scriptures on most issues at both an intellectual and emotional level.
Instead, preachers must, and should, feel free to “preach to the choir” without shame or apology for three reasons: the choir needs preaching, the choir contains heretics, and the choir is often shaped by worldly ethics.
The Choir Needs Preaching
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it / Prone to leave the God I love!” sings the choir. They know this, we know this. It isn’t patronizing to remind people of what they’ve already experienced but are prone to forget. This is both kind and realistic.
My favorite kind of Sundays are when I’m preaching. My second favorite kind of Sundays are when I’m not preaching. I get to sit under the heralded, treasured, exposited, and applied Word of God! Rarely do I “learn something new,” but every time I’m inspired to see Jesus as good, true, and beautiful, and am therefore moved to treasure him afresh and follow him more relentlessly. I need preaching like a worker bee needs pollen. When I’m in the choir, preach to me and the rest of us frail but committed saints!
The Choir Contains Heretics
There are two types of heretics: accidental and intentional. Most heretics in our churches are accidental heretics. They’ve got bad theology, don’t know the Scriptures, and are worldly in their assumptions about humanity, God, and the purpose of life.
The 2025 Ligonier and Lifeway report on the State of Theology of self-identified evangelicals should make pastors sweat:[1]
- 64% agreed that “everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.”
- 53% agreed that “everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”
- 53% agreed that “the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being.”
- 47% agreed that “God accepts the worship of all religions… including Islam.”
This is awesomely and impressively awful. These are the people who frequent our churches. They may not be your covenant members or core people in the church—although, they might be—but they’re in and around our local churches.
What makes this especially striking is that the same people who were surveyed agreed at 100% that “The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.” They say they believe the Bible and want to submit to the Scriptures—they just need to be taught what the Bible says!
Basic biblical teaching about basic biblical concepts is needed more than ever. Preach to the choir!
The Choir Often Shaped by Worldly Ethics
Orthodoxy is important; orthopraxy is also important. The same 2025 report showed that evangelicals are weak in their moral and ethical reasoning:[2]
- 29% disagreed with “God created marriage to be between one man and one woman.”
- 54% agreed that “Christians should not allow their religious beliefs to influence their politics.”
In the 2024 Pew Religious Landscape Survey, we find even more troublesome tendencies:[3]
- 33% of evangelicals agreed that “abortion should be legal”
- 18% said that “acceptance of transgender people is a positive change”
- 36% said that “gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry”
- 36% said that “homosexuality should be accepted by society”
Yes, those statistics are better than every other group surveyed, but they are still not good. In a church with 1000 congregants, would a pastor be happy if 360 of them thought homosexuality and abortion were public goods? That choir needs to be preached to!
It is foolish and fatal to assume that the people who go to your church agree with the Bible on ethics. We cannot get so caught up with critiquing those outside of the church that we neglect to form those within in basic matters of ethics and fidelity.
Your people are shaped by many voices beyond your own. Some of that is excellent; we don’t aspire to be cult leaders. Some of that is terrible; there are a lot of godless fools on the internet who are bent on normalizing what is abnormal and unholy. We need to explicitly and proactively combat the chorus of voices that scream at our people through mainstream and social media.
Feed My Sheep, Connect the Dots
“I’ve been doing Bible Study Fellowship for thirty years, and I’ve never thought about that before.”
A sweet woman who is newer to my church told me this recently. She’s in the choir. Her heart’s in the right place. She just hadn’t learned basic evangelical theology and ethics yet, despite having read so much Bible. Bible study is good, but preaching that courageously and faithfully includes synthesis into doctrine and application in ethics is also necessary.
The sheep needs sound, holistic, and grace-saturated preaching—so let’s feed them.
[1] “The State of Theology,” accessed March 30, 2026, https://thestateoftheology.com/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gregory A. Smith et al., “Religion and Views on LGBTQ Issues and Abortion,” Pew Research Center, February 26, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religion-and-views-on-lgbtq-issues-and-abortion/.