One big happy family?

What do you think about church? I think it might be interesting to get a discussion started on this, as many of us find aspects of church difficult. A few questions to kick off:

• How important would you personally say it is to be part of a church - essential, important, not particularly significant, very unimportant? What about going to services or other church meetings regularly? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being part of a church?
• What is your reaction to people in church very unlike yourself? What can we do when we find ourselves responding badly to them?
• How do you cope when your church (if you have one) has a style of worship that you find different from your ideal?
• What would you say are the most important priorities in choosing a church?
• How would you change your church, if you have one? Ideas for what we can practically do at the moment to change things would be great.
• Do you think that being part of a group of Christian friends can take the place of church?

I find it very easy to be critical, so I want to add the following sort of questions to balance things:

• What do you think your weaknesses are, that others in church could help you with?
• What's really great about your church, if you have one?
• Hope that sets things off. I'll rant about my own church situation in the discussion as it gets going.