Relationally speaking, or not?

Well a friend of mine wanted to go visit this church I used to go to, so we grabbed another friend of ours and headed over. He had heard some things about it, and been asked why he hadn't tested it out so he wanted to see what it was like for himself, and while I was there I realized a few things.

Let me begin the first by saying something bold. I find it offensive that when I enter a church of believers I get preached at. What I mean to say is that, preaching is inherently for pre-christians. That's right, preaching, large masses of crowds coming to see someone speak the Words of God, is for those who are not in a relationship with him. This is what we see in scripture. We see Peter do this, we see Paul do this in synagogues, we see Jesus do this in his preachings with large crowds. What I find offensive is that a pastor is preaching out to me without even knowing who I am. Church is supposed to be founded entirely on the relational aspect of God. Church is relational at it's core. It disturbs me that I can be preached at about needing to have vision, about needing to have God's heart, and about needing to be in his presence and in a relationship with him, but the way it's conveyed is in the most non-relational way possible. If a pastor wants to be effective what should he do? pastor a group! Not preach to 1000+ beleivers. Don't get me wrong, the message was good. It had good stuff to it. But it's like I was talking with my buddies before we got there about efficient vs effective. Preaching to 1000+ people is a very efficient way to convey God's message, the problem is that it's not effective, you don't see change like you could if you did things differently. There is a barrier that only approaching things relationally will overcome.

This leads me into my second thought: It seems that the church and it's leaders are fine with telling their congregations how to live, and telling them how God desires them to live. The problem is that to see growth you have to show it. I mean you can't just teach a message about how to live your life. You can't preach a message about vision, and seeing God working. You absolutely must approach each person in a relationship and show them in that relationship for them to change, and for them to move out in what God has given them. It occured to me that the way we do church, the way we interact with a large congregation is entirely set up to promote individualism, and pride in ones self about how they are doing in God. We only come to church once a week, and hear a motivational message about how we should be having this or that happen in our lives, or where we should be seeing God working. Then if we can imitate that somehow, even if only for a moment we can return and feel good about ourselves because we accomplished something. It kills every relational aspect I can think of, it strips God down to a formula and rips out the primary function of the church. Fellowship.