Attending Church-The Body Of Christ

[Strefanash]

I am afraid that I have not regularly attended (unles you count my going to the Local Russian Orthodox Church at Christmas and Easter as being regular :D ) for more than twenty five years.

I have a close and small circle of christian friends i talk to, which is fellowship enough for me.

As for church attendance I think that we tend to hold a ritualized and sacramental view of it - if we are not "going to church" on sunday and even during the week we are disobeying God. I think that we wil tend to have remnants of catholic ritualised thought in us as it is in the cultural background and much of it will creep in as assumption

But, my own uneasiness notwithstanding, I suspect this is a wrong view of church.

Then there is a practical realiity. I would be cut to pieces by them, because for all their talk of love they do not accept people who are different, and I am different, have been all my life. So their religion is worthless, thus it is not fellowship i am forsaking.

THen of course it is for their protection also. I might get nasty if crossed by some religionist, chiefly as I have never allowed myself freedom of thought and f eel obliged to believe anything a christian who I identify as being a christian says to me, hence the anger when they come out with something i either know is wrong or which i strongly disagree with. This is particularly the case when i am face to face with them . . .

as I have enver seen the love of God in any church I decided not to add heartbreak to heartbreak and gave up looking.

But the Holy Spirit is with me and the discussion one on one continues.

Besides, church is so boring, withether it be some dead ritual of an old style church or the pagan ranting of a pentecostal style cult.

You might say there are some churhces out there that are even what I might call commonly decent, but i am not going to hold my breath and look for them.

They have nothing to offer me and until i can repent of my contempt for them I have nothing to offer them.

So i keep away and do something spiritual on a sunday morning, namely continue to pray, something which requires no ritual or group to do.

I know this is jaundiced, but it is the way it is with me

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QUESTION:

Is the church the body of christ, or was the image of the body used as a metaphor to illustrate the imperative for harmonious co operation between diverse people within it? Or is this a false dichotomy?

The thing is when i hear the term "body of christ in this sense I pick up that many, many of such actually make the church the focus of their worship and faith, given that we all tend to undercut the sole mediatorship of christ and trust in our pastors or christian "friends" rather than in God himself. I know I have done this