Is it really picky of me to want to find a church family that:
Because it seems that every time I express distaste with either of these two things, I’m told some variation of “you’ll never find the perfect church on this earth, and if you do you’d only ruin it by joining.”
Why can’t the “regular assembling” look more like a family reunion?
Alan Knox has an article about the “local/universal church” up on his blog today:
It seems to me that the “local church” and “universal church” distinctions adds very little to our biblical understanding of God or of the church. Instead, it seems to divide the church into little groups that feel that they are maintaining unity in the body of Christ as long as they are united withing their “local church”. Meanwhile, it also allows believers to ignore the “one-anothers” of Scripture if the “one-another” does not “belong” to their “local church”.
This is one of the big reasons behind a project I have in the works. I don’t know when it’ll be announced, because I just finished a client’s redesign and I have some family obligations to attend to. 
But one of these days, I’ll let you know what’s under the hood…
