It seems like we are noisily agreeing... To make it clear - it is critical that we both bear good fruit and profess Jesus.
When we try to profess Jesus and bear evil fruit - we drive people away from Jesus...
When we don't profess Jesus but bear good fruit - everybody just thinks we are a nice, kind, good, friendly, moral person... They will not understand that we are working hard to live for God....
And this ties into the subject at hand...
What do you do when you dearly want to serve - but it seems like there is no "Dynamism" or "charisma" within the church organization?
It's not our place to bring down the leaders in the place... There is no place for machinations and politicking against our appointed church leadership....
What I am seeing is that a lot of people are being individually called to serve outside of their formal church organization... Our biggest single opportunity is the daily life we live...
This doesn't mean that we quit going to church and do our own thing... It means that out outreach ends up outside of formal organized programs...
Noise doesn't imply problems with cohesion of the group. It means people are excited enough to participate.
During the council of Nicea the issue of the Trinity was discussed. Heresy was involved and one delegate, Nicholas of Lycia, became so inflamed he struck Arias, the leader of the heretical opposition, in the face with his fist. This is the same Nicholas that was later raised to sainthood by the Pope and who is known today as Santa Claus. I don't think you and I are anywhere near coming to blows, so I'm good with the discussion so far.
You said that disagreement "doesn't mean we quit going to church". Unfortunately this statement is theory only. In actual practice people ARE failing to attend church. The reasons for their abandonment are legion. As a general observation from where I sit (actual from where I've
sat), the leadership has betrayed the flock. They are shepherds who have corrupted themselves and threaten the spiritual foundations of Christendom as well as the individual spiritual journey of those who attend their meetings.
I live in west central Florida and for many years my wife and I wandered from one church to another looking for a place that hadn't corrupted the gospel. The retort to this is usually that 'nobody is perfect' and that one should be loyal to a church. How can one be loyal when the leadership has betrayed the gospel? Being asked to recant faith in Jesus Christ to become a leader, being told that anyone can be admitted to Paradise without being saved, being told that any social life style is acceptable to God, being told that happy talk is necessary to fill seats on Sunday morning, and being advised that the congregation can "go out and sin all you want this week so that grace may abound" are all actual things I've seen and heard personally. In years past, such leaders would have been summarily dismissed from their duties. Today they continue only because their personal charisma brings people into the group (temporarily I must add).
Through the last ten years or so my wife and I wandered from church to church. Here's where it gets creepy - we met other people who were doing the same thing for the same reasons. Be advised that I have a Masters Degree in Theology from a northern seminary, so I know lies and heresy when I hear it. That being said the gospel isn't rocket science and anyone can tell when they're being conned.
Nobody
'brings down leaders' any more.
That's old school Today people just walk out - and they are leaving in droves. PEW and Gallup statistics use the year 1948 as a benchmark for attendance records. Attendance in years following is compared to '48. In 2010, statistics state that only 40% of respondents attended church on a regular basis ('regular basis' was defined as attendance at a minimum of once per month) as compared to 1948. I think Gallup said 50%. A third poll, which actually counted heads and did not rely upon statements of record, which can be skewed, stated something like 30%. I don't remember the name of the 3rd poll, but can forward that upon request. All the polls projected current trends and predicted that by 2050 the tally would dip to 10%. This is a problem of leadership, not the flock.
When the shepherds do not do their ordained duties, the flock wanders away. So it was in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah and so it is today. Some things never change.
To this day my wife does not attend services regularly. I have found a much more satisfying spiritual home in a Messianic Jewish congregation. There are many variations of this all over the place and the seeker would do well to education himself prior to making any sort of commitment. Some Messianics are more fundy than others and some adhere closely to parent denominations. The one I found has no Christian association attached to it. The clarity of doctrine and the depth of sermons is amazing and very refreshing. I've been attending for over two years and am contemplating permanent membership.
My point is that there IS an option without abandoning the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the Jewish leadership abandoned Christ, the Holy Spirit raised up the church. Today the church has abandoned Christ and the Lord has raised up a community not dissimilar to the first century Christians - Messianic Jews. In the late 1960's through the early 1970's America experienced its last great national revival. The church generally opposed the movement and told the Holy Spirit to hit the road. Evangelicals took up the standard and marched with the gospel for about a decade until satellite TV preachers gutted the gospel and made its message illegitimate. Many great theologians of the mid to third quarter of the twentieth century bemoaned this state of affairs (Francis Schaeffer, Richard Niebuhr, and a few apologists such as Ravi Zacharias). But the Holy Spirit did not leave the Kingdom of Heaven without a witness. At the same time the Jesus movement was being rejected by denominational churches(*), the Messianic Jewish movement was born. It was a very strange turn of events and continues to this day.
There IS an option to dead churches and corrupt Christian leadership. I advise the reader to NOT give up looking. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.
and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...
(*) I was beginning to be established in a role of Christian leadership at the time and can attest to personally witnessing conversations that pointedly rejected Jesus Christ and the desire of hungry congregations to hear more solid gospel teaching. I was told that the ministry was "just a job" and that personal conviction was not necessary. Missionaries I met have told me that the organizations forbid communications that mention the name of Jesus and that these same organizations are mismanaging funds for plague and hunger relief in third world countries.
A third option is Home Church. I've explored this as well, but find that leadership there is as vacuous as denominational churches that retain tradition but deny Christ. New Age heresy has kept in there, thus making them spiritually toxic.