40 Days (and Sundays)

Today is Ash Wednesday, 2011, March 9. It's really late for Lent to start and the next 40 days (and Sundays) can be a great spiritual experience, or not. Many people on Facebook and other sharing places have been discussing, stating and pondering just what Lent is to them. What they should or will give up, or what they may add to their busy schedules in order to have a time of closer contact with God.

Me, I'm thinking of giving up church for Lent.

I want to give up the idea my time spent in church "worshiping" as merely an exercise in participating in a primitive form of social networking. Old fashioned fellowship can be just "Facebook Live!" "Here I am!" "How are you?" yadda yadda..... Prayer "concerns" can be "holy gossip."
I want to give up the idea that my tithe to the church is just a form of "dues" paying like I'm in the Lions Club, Masons or Kiwanis or a church tax, to pay the higher ups (including the local pastor) or so we can meet our obligations to fix the furnace, the windows, mow the grass, keep the lights on. Somehow those don't seem like ministry to me at times.
I want to give up on making the appearance in church. Is it true that attendance is mandatory and will make a huge difference on how big our mansion in heaven will be. (I may not get virgins when I die, but I will get a house bigger than anything Hugh Hefner has!)
I want to give up on appearances in church too. Comparing what I wear to a.) what everyone else is wearing, and b.) what I wear to the standards of those who believe God wears a bed sheet, but American Christians should dress up.
I want to give up on the church having the cure to what ever ails the world. I don't know WHAT will make people not want to emulate Charlie Sheen*, I only know WHO, and I can't write a prescription for Jesus, but I can live like He leads me to and then maybe they will catch what I have. Am I doing that if I'm not at church?
I want to give up on the church trying to make all Christians the same. I don't believe the world needs or wants more than one of me, so I want Christ in me to show through so others will want to be like Him, NOT ME!
I want to give up on the church judging people. If we are the church, then this one is definitely in our court, but I know I can't do it alone so I'll let God work on that one for the next 40 days (plus Sundays). You might want to work on that one too (not to be judgmental or anything.)
I want to give up on the church theme of "pie in the sky by and by", and have Christ live in me now. This may include singing no songs in the next 40 days (plus Sundays) that include thoughts, lines, insinuation, or promises of what is to come. I think one of the problems of the church is it is a place of escapism. We need to live in the now not the later when we all get to.....you know where.
I want to give up that the church is all of the following: the answer, my home, my people, the only way to eternal life, a place of peace, a place of ideas, a place of enlightenment, a place of hope, a place of growth or a place, the only place for some, or the RIGHT place. No place can be all these things, but I hope it can become what it needs to be not what I expect it to be. 
I want to give up being a cynical Christian.
I guess I have 40days (plus Sundays) to let God work on that.
Peace my Friends.......btw *required Charlie Sheen reference for relevance sake.
Have a Ash Wednesday.