Balancing the personal and the corporate

The conflict (if I can call it that) between individual spirituality and organise religion has always interested me.  I know people who've struggled to find a church where they feel at home because they can't find one which fits in with their personal ideas.

Personal spirituality is much more fashionable at the moment than organised religion.  Particularly when people say that religion should be private, or restricted to the private, hidden parts of a practitioner's life; never spoken about with non-believers, never obvious or overpowering.  Although I don't agree that faith should be something we hide (that doesn't really fit with Jesus' commands to be 'witnesses,' does it?) I can understand the attraction of the personal vs organised debate.  In a way, evangelical revivals of the few hundred years even going back to the Reformations, have brought this about by concentrating on the believer's individual relationship with God rather than the church's.  Protestant doctrines playing up the role of the believer in searching out God for him or her self, through Bible reading and personal prayer, took over from Medieval ideas of finding salvation through the church and priesthood.  Spiritual movements, both Christian and from some other faiths, and cultural shifts, have only increased this tendancy to individualism over the last few decades. 

Organised religion, by contrast, is often today seen as foolish and deluded, as out of date, stuck in the past.  Sometimes, sadly, the institutions of the church or the behaviour of other branches of the church can seem more of a help than a hindrance to Christ's Great Commission.  We know this isn't how things should be, but changing this situation is fraught with difficulty and heartbreak for many.  But Paul's letters show us the importance the early followes of Jesus put on the church, the community of believers meeting to worship and to support one another, so we try to make it work, in our church, in our town, getting little recognition or encouragement. 

The paradox is that much research (and 'evangelism training') shows that it is very often the community of believers, the church, which helps bring people to a place where they find God.  Not always, of course; some people find God on their own, but many more come to church services or groups, go on Alpha or a similar course, or through friends willing to talk about and live out their faith. So although people will often say 'I'm fine with Jesus, it's the church I can't stand,' often it's the church which helps them understand what Jesus really meant. 

So how does the church respond?  How do we balance the importance of a personal relationship with Christ with our responsibilities and relationship to the body of Christ, the church?  I'm not sure I know.  As usual I suppose we just have to do our best and listen to God's guidance.  And trust he knows what he's doing.