I'm a Christian and I have zero use for any church....period.
That is like saying, "I am an avid rifleman but have zero use for a range".
...the Church is Christ's chosen means of bringing people to salvation. The fact that so many people in it are messed up is no excuse for disassociation from it. After all, how would one disassociate from all institutions that involve messed up people?
A proper understanding of one's role in the Church requires that we recognize our own sinfulness and need for grace... and our need to extend that grace to our brothers and sisters in the faith.
I'm neither Christian nor religious but I respect many who are so my comment below is not intended to offend. And not being religious I have no dog in this particular difference of opinion.
But...I think the more correct analogy would be something like:
Saying you are a Christian but have no use for a church would be more like saying you are a rifleman but have no use for joining a riflemen's club where other riflemen meet to discuss their theories and beliefs of what a particular book about rifle shooting has to say and how you should go about shooting when you do go to the range.
The church is not the rifle range. Life outside the church is the rifle range.
You might pick up some great theories and tips about shooting (along with some not so good tips and theories) at a particular riflemen's club (or at another club that interpreted the same book a bit differently). But you actually put them into practice at the range (or in the hunting fields.)
Then, again, you might want to join an entirely different riflemen's club where they discussed the "truths" about rifle shooting that they derived from an
entirely different book.
Some of you might be bench rest shooters or high power. Others purely hunters just sighting in for hunting. So your choice of riflemen's club might be different.
You might all be successful shooters - hitting the target you aimed at but just getting there in different ways. Or you might be lousy shooters because:
1. you were unable or unwilling to actually put into practice the tips and theories you've learned from your particular club and the book it is based on;
2. because you interpreted and employed the tips and theories incorrectly;
3. because the theories and tips from your book and/or club were wrong (however strongly you believed them).
Or you might never have joined a riflemen's club or ever read any of the GREAT BOOKS on rifle shooting but still have learned the principles of how to shoot, when to shoot, and to ONLY shoot at something you intended to hit and/or kill from your parents, from watching others, or from your personal experience through trial and error and practice. You might be the great shot who proves that NONE of the books on shooting are essential to great shooting.
Knowledge of all the GREAT BOOKS on shooting might be useful but none may be either necessary or sufficient to produce a great shooter.
