God, not the church (any church) is the goal. Or to put it more crudely: if God is the destination, churches are the gas stations along the route. Then again, to some, God is the destination and churches are the bureaucratic city works department that erects roadblocks and sends you on frustrating detours that eventually force you to throw up your hands and say, “Oh, to hell with it; there’s got to be a better route.” As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once opined, people come to church in a spirit of hope and openness but leave as if they’ve staggered from a maze of mind-boggling bombast.
