This may be painfully obvious to many, but I had somewhat of a revelation concerning the state of worship in Evangelical churches in America. It seems that the worship in many churches is negatively impacted by a sharp contrast between the identity of the church as a body of believers and the body's purpose of weekly (or more often) assembling for corporate worship. Obviously, there is a distinction, because the church is not a building, a steeple, a program, a service, etc (insert cliche here). But it seems that far too many Christians have divorced the role of weekly corporate assembling from their view of what "church" is. For many, the "real life" of the church is found in bible study groups, fellowship meetings, etc occurring throughout the week. And make no mistake, these activities are vital to the health and growth of the local body. But it seems that the prime and unifying purpose of the whole church should be to assemble on the Lord's Day to worship. The identity of the body is defined by both its composition and its purpose. When the two are torn asunder, the worship of the church suffers.

(I could speculate on the many reasons for this rending, and I'd probably use the word "gnostic" with some frequency. But that will have to wait.)