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Last week my inbox recieved this question: should we all play an active role in our church, should we have a passion for our church?
It took a while for me to start a response to this stranger, and even when I started to answer, I did not have anything in mind to say. So, with nothing to say, and no more than an empty bag and less than a mustard seed of faith ... click more to see what I said

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You should be active in all things in life. Yet there are things that people call "church activity" that is really only passivity.

To be active is to choose.
To be passive is to refuse choice.
Many people are passive at their local fellowship, and let their free-choosing be upon another person(s) - "the clergy," or "the majority".

I encourage you, as someone who struggles against this nature inside of me that would be passive, to be active, but not as the world is active.

The activity to which we encourage each other is to actively choose and make our choice the Lord Jesus. That way we can chain our choices to the Lord, and use flimsy slip-knots on others (like the church members/clergy.) In so doing, by our own active choices, we remain with the Lord, when others move away from Jesus. We are not passively going along with the herd, but actively staying at the side of our Lord and Savior.

I warn you, that taking this active choice will single you out, because it is easy to go along with the crowds and submit yourself to the corporate mind of a mob, than it is to draw near to the Lord and fix your attention on Him for all things.

In this step you WILL be involved in the church of the Lord, but less involved in the church named by men.
The goal is that when people ask you, "To which church do you belong?", you will be able to answer them, "I belong to no church named of men. I belong to My Lord Jesus. Together with all those who are His, is the Church in which I dwell."

This occurs as we actively use every opportunity afforded by this life to present ourself to the Lord.
As a famous Roman citizen once wrote:

Romans 12:1
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Paul said this with familiarity of Roman soldiers, who would daily present themselves to their captains. This "living sacrifice" is not to mean "sheep for the slaughter" ... but when I have heard preaching in the past, I was left thinking that I would need to make a last meal-request and prepare to die. However, that is not what soldiers were doing, when they daily presented themselves. Rather, they were choosing to be servants of their generals and captains. Moreover, they were released from concerns about the outcome or goals, because they became as workers, not tacticians.

Let the soldiers have each their own ideas of how to serve and there is chaos. Let each soldier submit and present themselves to one that is in charge, and there is order, efficiency, and no labor is in vain, nor are any of the workers burdened with the mastery of anything else than the work they are given.

The picture is like a thousand carpenters, each doing as a single architect has set forth the plans. Yet no single carpenter has seen all the plans, nor have they conceived all that there is in the structure. They work on what they are given and submit to the design of their master. A good worker does exactly as they are instructed, building only a part of the master plan. And indeed, if the structure is lame, or fails, or doesn't turn out right, are any of the good workers to blame? Not at all, for they have done what is well, according to what they were given to do.

Likewise, no soldier is to blame when doing as the general commands. And so, it is a freedom and lifting of burden to present ourselves to the Lord, as often as we can. Because we are not meant to carry all the world on our shoulders, with the blame of how it all turns out. Rather we look to Him for immediate guidance, of how our servitude can glorify God. And even the little things, that don't seem to matter to the world, matter a great deal to the Master. For anything done in simple surrender and obedience to the gentle guidance of the Lord is a treasure in the Kingdom.

Mark 9:41
I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

Luke 17:7-10
7"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? 8Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? 9Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "