Churches are autonomous and are the sole determiners of who preached in their pulpits.
Generally, congregations demand a high level of Bible knowledge and understanding. In frontier days this was usually attained through personal study and in unstructured, though often rigid and challenging, study sessions with older preachers. In more recent decades, preacher training schools have been started by congregations who felt that the liberal arts colleges were not fully meeting the need for preacher preparation, especially for the older student who may have decided on a preaching career later in life. Generally, no general education courses were included. The Bible college's role in preacher preparation encompasses some of the advantages of both the liberal arts Bible major and the preacher training school.