What's the point of preaching?

I was just browsing around the Washington New Church's new web site (www.washingtonnewchurch.org) and found a great little article by their new pastor (Rev. Mike Gladish) about the point of preaching and coming to church. It's on the first couple of pages of their summer newsletter (PDF). Here's an excerpt:

I like preaching, and I hope you can enjoy listening to someone preach, especially when the message being delivered is from the Word. But really, what’s the point? Why would you come and listen to me or anyone else “preach” when you can go to the Word for yourselves and learn all that you need to know in order to live well and prepare for heaven?

One answer is painfully simple: I get paid to study the Word and you don’t. Therefore I have an advantage (one that YOU provide for me) in that I am specially trained and can take more time than you can, as needed, to consider the context of the teachings, their meaning, the implications, and so on. In that respect I’m no different than a plumber or an architect: I’m a specialist. And like most specialists I have no authority to tell you what to do, but I can tell you what the code requires. Besides, if you didn’t come to church would you really spend that time reading the Word instead?

Which brings me to the main point. ...

I also liked Rev. Mike Ferrell's article about the use of vacation (pp4-5 under "From the Assistant").