I was in a southern gospel band here in central KY for about two years. We played at a lot of those small churches, mostly baptist.
I heard so much unmitigated crap coming from those “lay-prachers” that I had finally had it one day and challenged what he was saying, though very discretely.
The problem is that this was the culture of the rest of the band - listening to preachers yell for a half hour without really focusing on any partucular message, with one of the elders occasionally yelling, “preach it, brother.”
So I was fired from the band. They only kept me in as long as they did because I’m a pretty good bass player and they nicknamed me “The Professor” because I seemed to know a lot of stuff they didn’t know. They already knew I was challenged by a lot of what I was hearing and they knew I was about to blow. And none of them would even listen to what I was trying to say. Not one. i.e. they were part of that culture.
It’s sad that a person can say almost anything from a pulpit and people will just believe it because, well, it’s coming from “God’s house”.
/rant
I had a friend who was put on the spot when he was trying to put on a church play and couldn’t get a committment for people to rehearse. They told him the did not need to, because “through G_d all things are possible.”
His response, with the Pastor looking on, was “then why did G_d have Jesus prepare for 30 years for a 3 year mission?”
The Pastor approved.