I wouldn't worry too much about this direction. John has had many spiritual songs available to us already. Besides the obvious ones that were included on In The Valley of Dying Stars, there's also been several spiritual, unreleased songs such as "Jesus" and "Salvation".

And I wouldn't call those nor "Jesus Gonna Build Me a Home" a bit preachy at all.

"Preachy" to me deals with "finger pointing" lyrics. John's always been more of a "story teller". I don't see a soapbox beneath his feet... just piano pedals.