I have no experience with evangelical churches, but your take on Medium is right on the money.

A subscription model reflects a publicly rarely expressed opinion that commercial media are bad, in the sense of morally corrupt. Subscription-based media are seen as, exactly as this article points out, a club of noble people devoted to lofty ideas.

Besides people gathering together, Medium has no purpose.

The biggest falsehood is in seeing Medium as a forum for writers, not readers. Without readers, writers do not need Medium; they can write for the sake of writing for themselves. If Medium focuses on attracting readers, writers will come.

For the record, I outlined how to do it: “Can Medium be the next big thing in media?”