Am I leaving the Church, or just now entering it?

I have been in a Pentecostal church now for around 8 years and I have noticed throughout my time that all I have been taught is what God can do for me. Don’t get me wrong, God wants to help us, He sent His Son to die for us so that we can have peace with God. But it seems that we never get to the place to where we need to be with God, it just seems that we go around looking for the next “miracle”, never asking God “what can I do for you today Lord”. Every Sunday, every Wednesday it seems I never hear about Jesus, his compassion, Mercy, Love, and Forgiveness. It seems that most of the “preaching” is about Healing, getting your bills paid, believing for a miracle, “Him making a way where there seems to be no way”. Any time spent about God is how you have to be perfect without sin, and “you better get right with God”. I believe there is a problem in the way we do church. Instead of viewing God in what He can do for us, maybe we need to ask “what can we do for God?,I mean it was Jesus in Matthew that said as much as you have fed, clothed, visited, and cared for the least of these people you have done it to God. After all He gave His life for us, is it too much to ask “can we give our lives back to Him?” It seems to me from what I’ve heard “preached” that we are to “separate” ourselves from “the world”. It seems the “world” as defined by the “church” is those who cuss, smoke, drink, and chew. The world defined by Jesus was usually the religious institutions, or the Pharisees. I never see Jesus in Scripture saying “stay away from those people they drink and cuss”, no the ones to stay away from according to Jesus was the religious leaders that set up the rules and regulations, the people who “thought” they were better than everyone else. I have made a decision today to stop going to church and I am going to become the church, the church is not a building but rather the church is people who become filled with the life of God and shares that life with others, regardless of their belief. I have felt a calling to do this for a few years, but I have ignored God’s voice. I am tired of going through the motions of dead religion, Let me ask you do you think God is pleased by you yelling and running in a building professing that you “love Him?”, or is he more pleased when you find a child or a family who have no hope, and you give them the necessities they need. Which is a greater faith? One that you talk about or one that is lived, one that looks for the next miracle fix, or one that takes someone like you or me and we look to be a miracle to someone in need? “Church” does not have to be in a building with hundreds of people, but rather Church to me is a few people learning about Jesus and seeing the good works that He did to undeserving people, and following Him. Not going out as a group and doing it, but rather individuals in their daily life impacting others around them. That’s what pleases God, a faith that produces fruit, serving Jesus with everyone regardless of tattoos, piercings, color, poor, rich etc. We have to get back to the Love and will of God, and start serving Jesus and not ourselves. I don’t want my family to learn the hypocrisy of religion, I want them to learn to worship and serve God in Spirit and truth by serving others. I want my children to learn to be like Christ and walk in Love, compassion, and grace to me this is worship and serving God, not in the hypocrisy of religion that teaches me to get away from those who oppose me, and don’t believe like me, we have to be light in this dark world, don’t hide yourself in a building, but become the building that God wants to abide in and work through.
Jeff Porter