I'm noticing more and more professing Christians leaving church altogether because they have been burned too many times by others at church. Truly sad.
I know man, the saddest part is not understanding and realizing that it is between them and God, and expecting way to much from a group of flawed people. The only way to be part of the church is for God to let you in, and the only way to Him is through the narrow gate, Jesus Christ. I am truly grateful to be part of a church that was the result of a merger, and that I have the experience of having attended church and sat in the pews having not been truly saved.
God is truly amazing and if He can change a fool like this going from, a bastard child, to a confused preteen, a rebellious teen to a drug dealing, partying, don't care about anything but me right now, to a locked up thug, then an atheistic working man trying to do the right thing for myself and my woman, to a father with no direction but "work to provide", to a husband without God and a believing wife, to a curious husband that started to like the "idea" of this Jesus guy but had no clue who or what it was all about, to a fairly successful husband and father of two that could pat himself on the back for everything
he had accomplished, to a motorcycle wreak survivor that no longer had any use of his dominate arm and no hope of fixing it, or getting any kind of compensation for it, to a suicidal, broken, and hopeless man stuck on this earth because he just couldn't bring himself to cut his wrist he could no longer feel, and leave his two sons. I thank God SO MUCH for the path I've lived and the perspective He gave me through it all after I threw my hands up and quit, my pride was crushed and died, and I could no longer "do it" anymore at 33 years old. That was when He picked me up and made me new, that was when He opened my eyes and showed me His truth. That was when the old me was put to rest and the new me awoke, and most of all that was when He showed me what the church truly was.
I just praise Jesus mighty name He did that for each and every person that will seek Him and that come to the end of themselves. I thank Him that He doesn't write any of us off, even people like me (and all of us in our own ways), but if I can be saved then so can anyone. The true church can't fall apart, but us people sure can make it seem a mess.