Over the years I’ve come to appreciate that I don’t have all the answers and perhaps don’t have the only correct understanding on every point even when Biblically it seems clear to me. I've also come to know that others don't either. Perhaps I now appreciate grace more and try to give it when I can. Perhaps I understand my role is only to water while others reap. I'm still trying to listen more than I speak but that seems a never ending struggle.
Now I don’t agree 100% with what TheBattman responded with in #19, but I sense his humility. All of which goes back to my point about different “styles” of Christianity: on one extreme there is a hard-core, book-chapter-verse approach that clearly has a place, versus what this Dan Smith is pushing which, again IMO, has a place as well. My hope would be that many of those who attend a Dan Smith style Church would eventually get feed just enough of the truth (milk) to hunger for more of the meat & potatoes. Where God might take them from there...I don't know.
The main Church that I attended for years typically made the Sunday worship a fairly lite weight, Bible based, fun, uplifting gathering of family. Sure, there were many exceptions, but typically. However, it was understood that the Wednesday night Bible studies were much more serious, agenda driven, formal instruction. Is that right or wrong? Heck, I don’t know. I will tell you that for many years it worked very well, so judging by the fruits, I guess it was on the right track.
Goals are the same. Styles are different.
You make a very strong point, and I think the apoostle Paul would back you up.
In I Corinthians 2, he writes these things:
“...my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” (vv. 4 & 5) NASB
So, there’s a message delivered for the purpose of bringing the hearers into faith in such a way that persuasive talk would not be a substitute for, or a mask over, the power of God.
Then, Paul writes this:
“Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature...” (v. 6) NASB
And he goes on to elaborate on the godly origin and nature of that wisdom.
Your church Sunday service was more the first kind of message, and the Wednesday night meeting was more the latter. I’ve been to that kind of church, before, and it works, as you note.
I’ve also been in churches where the Sunday services were for basic teaching and some ministry in prayer, and house meetings throughout the week were used for deeper teaching, and more personal ministry in prayer.
The church I now attend has a teaching hour before the main service to “get into the meat”, and the message given in the service is more basic.
All are examples of what I think is a legitimate handling of basic vs. advanced teaching in The Kingdom of God. We serve the milk in a glass, “Please, hold it with two hands so you don’t spill”, but we put the meat on a plate, and provide tools for cutting it into bite-sized pieces so it can be properly digested, “Don’t eat off of your knife”.
Having two different forums for these two different approaches is, I think, quite appropriate.