LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- He once was considered by many the best preacher in the country. But it wasn't until he fell from that pinnacle and began selling funeral services door to door that Joel Gregory says he learned "that most people are living a life of quiet desperation and marginal existence."

"I found out what I didn't know, and that is most people are barely making it. It has changed my preaching and my life."

The nation also is in a battle, Gregory emphasized. "I think that preaching post-9/11 cannot be the same," he said. "I believe a day will come when people will not want to know the pabulum of the talking heads on CNN or the fiction of Fox network or the latest insight of Dr. Phil. We may be in a world where they will turn back in a last gasp of secularism and say, 'Is there a word from God?'"