Hi FD, perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but church is a place that we go to step back out of the world and remember who we are, and just Who it is that we belong to. It's meant to be a place to grow in Christ and, hopefully, to help others do the same, and then to take what we have learned of God and His love to a very needy world.
We are also meant to give ourselves to/function as part of the body of Christ, which is both necessary for us and necessary for the "body" as well .. see
1 Corinthians 12 (and for those to whom we will minister outside of the church).
Of course, I don't know your particular situation, but my present (and past) churches, have all been filled with godly men and women who I have had the pleasure to know, to work alongside, and for the most part, to call my friends (many of whom I have, in fact, chosen to emulate because of their godly qualities and the way they've chosen to live before Him).
There will always be those who are more mature in the faith, and those who are less mature, so there will be some who can help/minister to us in our walk with Him, and others who we can help/minister to.
And there will always be "problems" as well. It's certainly not always a perfect place or situation, because a church is made up of people
As for your choice to get beyond the "theoretical" stage of your Christianity, I think that would be a great idea (and what better place to do so than the church). And if the place that you've chosen to worship in has few to emulate/little going on, then you will need to be the one to show/help your fellows at church find their way/understand how to grow as Christians and to function as the local body of believers the Lord intended.
One book that might help you with this is Dr. J I Packer's,
Knowing God. I know of no book, save perhaps the Bible, that comes more highly and consistently recommended than
Knowing God does, by so many leaders within Christendom for so many years. Here is an excerpt form the preface that, in part, describes who the book was written to/for (see particularly paragraphs 2-4 below in particular concerning "balconeers" and "travelers").
Preface (1973)
As clowns yearn to play Hamlet, so I have wanted to write a treatise on God. This book, however, is not it. Its length might suggest that it is trying to be, but anyone who takes it that way will be disappointed. It is at best a string of beads: a series of small studies of great subjects, most of which first appeared in the Evangelical Magazine. They were conceived as separate messages but are now presented together because they seem to coalesce into a single message about God and our living. It is their practical purpose that explains both the selection and omission of topics and the manner of treatment.
In A Preface to Christian Theology, John Mackay illustrated two kinds of interest in Christian things by picturing persons sitting on the high front balcony of a Spanish house watching travelers go by on the road below. The “balconeers” can overhear the travelers’ talk and chat with them; they may comment critically on the way that the travelers walk; or they may discuss questions about the road, how it can exist at all or lead anywhere, what might be seen from different points along it, and so forth; but they are onlookers, and their problems are theoretical only. The travelers, by contrast, face problems which, though they have their theoretical angle, are essentially practical—problems of the “which–way–to–go” and “how–to–make–it” type, problems which call not merely for comprehension but for decision and action too.
Balconeers and travelers may think over the same area, yet their problems differ. Thus (for instance) in relation to evil, the balconeer’s problem is to find a theoretical explanation of how evil can consist with God’s sovereignty and goodness, but the traveler’s problem is how to master evil and bring good out of it. Or again, in relation to sin, the balconeer asks whether racial sinfulness and personal perversity are really credible, while the traveler, knowing sin from within, asks what hope there is of deliverance. Or take the problem of the Godhead; while the balconeer is asking how one God can conceivably be three, what sort of unity three could have, and how three who make one can be persons, the traveler wants to know how to show proper honor, love and trust toward the three Persons who are now together at work to bring him out of sin to glory. And so we might go on.
Now this is a book for travelers, and it is with travelers’ questions that it deals.
The conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God—ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him—lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today. Two unhappy trends seem to have produced this state of affairs...... (I'll let you read the rest of it if you decide to read the book
).
J. I. P.
Trinity College, Bristol
July 1972
I'm not sure this book or what I've tried to say will be useful to you, but I thought it might be considering some of the things you were saying. Again, I hope I am not too far off in my understanding of your complaints and longings for something better. If I am, I apologize.
Yours in Christ,
David
