I guess I decided to tease you by waiting until this post before giving my thoughts about whether or not you need "church". Actually, I didn't want the first part to be longer than it already is! So here goes.
If you're a willing, open-minded non-believer, going to a four-walled church might be a good way to learn about God as I mentioned in Part I, but provided only that you're in a good environment. It would be better for you at this point to ask God to make Himself known and real to you, then to ask Him if this is the time for you to look for a "good" church (i.e. biblically grounded) - and of course to ask Him to lead you to such a church! God will lead your heart to the right place for you if you open yourself up to Him and trust Him. I'm confident that He wouldn't lead you to a spiritual morgue like the one I was forced to attend as a kid!
If you're a believer, I firmly believe that no matter what kind of perceived or actual experiences or hang-ups you've had at a particular church, you need to first attempt to find and become a part of another one. And I don't mean make that building the center of your faith, but rather the center of your fellowship.
When Christians decide to shy away from other believers, iron can't sharpen iron. Disagreement and debate and even conflict are the root causes of growth, and sitting at home in your bell jar on a Sunday morning makes you a weaker Christian if you aren't at least spending that time in prayer and Bible reading. If you're spending that time shining your car or reading the financial headlines instead, then your relationship with God throughout the week is probably not a priority at any point, either. And the resulting dryness of your spiritual life and therefore life overall - hand-in-hand with your increasing selfishness and desire for worldly things - can come as no surprise.
Also, by shying away, Satan has you right where he wants you. His favorite tactic is to divide and conquer the body of Christ, and he has succeeded marvelously by making countless Christians think they don't need regular fellowship with a body of believers at or through a local church. What often follows is what I alluded to above, and that is substituting fellowship with pursuing worldly things that have left far too many Christians wondering why their lives aren't anywhere near as satisfying as they could be.
Far more often than not, Christians who avoid attending a local church often end up being a Christian by title only, and not by their impact for Christ on the world around them.
However, some Christians who have had truly frustrating if not severely damaging experiences in a four-walled church still need to attempt to seek fellowship. Seeking this in what I call the "true" church, or with other believers in the body of Christ outside of a four-walled church, is better than nothing at all. These believers could start a home Bible study, or they could attend one hosted by someone else. It is often in a small, close-knit environment with other wounded Christians that they can feel open to share what might have gotten them ostracized from a four-walled, or congregational church.
So really, I firmly believe that everyone needs "church", but frankly for a small few believers this may be best achieved outside the large, four-walled congregational kind that has a label attached to it like "Lutheran" or "Anglican" or "Pentecostal" or "Catholic".
What all people ultimately need, however, is to be part of the body of Christ, that church that extends world-wide across all cultures and boundaries. And again, a person becomes a part of this body once they've gotten right with God, which results from asking Jesus to forgive and cleanse them of their sins, which then re-establishes their relationship with God. Such a "saved" person is then known as a Christian.
And whether a person decides to meet with other members of that body in a congregational church with some fancy label or title or simply in someone's living room should result from earnest prayer and waiting for God's answer on the part of a believer. This should not result from peer pressure, but strictly from what one is firmly convinced that God is speaking to them.
My concern is again with those who say they are Christian but who never make the effort to fellowship anywhere with any other Christians, or at least to extend their fellowship beyond, say, their family. Christians MUST make the effort to be willing to trust God by stepping out and fellowshipping in a broader context. Perhaps you need to attend that home Bible study group that your friend or neighbor told you about, or that you read about on a poster or on the internet.
Whatever means you choose to fellowship, you become like a lake that has a stream flowing into it and another flowing out of it. The new experiences you have with different believers is like fresh water flowing in, used by God to bring about cleansing and change in your life, and this forces the selfishness and worldliness away like the stream flowing out.
However, refusing to fellowship at all, or to not extend your fellowship beyond family makes you like a lake with no inlet or outlet stream. There is no freshness in your spiritual life, so after a while the algae and weeds begin to kill your spirit, and the waters of your spiritual life and therefore your life overall eventually stagnate and die.
So the most important question is really not whether or not you need church, but rather whether or not you need fellowship with other people who believe in Jesus. Although I believe the latter is best achieved in a four-walled building, it is obvious throughout the entire body of New Testament scripture - especially in the book of Acts - that regular fellowship in some kind of group setting is crucial.
Otherwise, you are at the mercy of the devil and your spiritual life will stagnate to the point of no longer being effective for Christ. And not being of effect for Christ means that your existence on this planet is essentially a waste.
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