Is church just a bureaucratic club?

Yes I know the old adage (attributed to C S Lewis) that if I find a perfect church it will no longer be perfect when I join it but I have found myself increasingly disillusioned in recent years. Church is a body of people who follow Jesus Christ in loving devotion. I think the centrality of the Redeeming Christ in the power of His Spirit is what marks the Church, where the members love each other. But love opens us to our vulnerability and the need for Spiritual maturity-

Too often it seems Church leaders may preach the word but nothing changes. The church has become a bureaucratic organisation with rules and regulations and rather rigid structures. Many only know a Church as a club they go to on Sunday with only superficial contact with fellow members and where they defend the old way of doing things and are afraid to move out in faith-

I found myself considering the relationship of Jesus to the religious leaders of his day. They were sincere in their belief that they were following God's rules and very critical of the way in their eyes he was flouting them, but they had got it quite wrong. Are we in our day doing the same sort of thing?
In a bureaucratic organisation rules cover every contingency, when a new problem arises a new rule is enacted. Over time unless some old rules are cancelled there are too many and many are ignored in practice. Churches often act like this too; for those who like set prayers new ones have to be written for special occasions. If there is a need for pastoral care a Pastoral care team is appointed and no-one else can Pastor and so on. Often there is an air of secrecy which functions to keep power with those 'in the know' and the majority are left as 'pew-fillers'.

David Watson used an illustration first described I believe by Juan Luis Ortiz, of a corked bottle. In the bottle are rows of pew-fillers with a layer or two of leaders - Elders or Vestry or Council members- and the Pastor or Priest was the cork in the bottle. Only when  the cork came out of the bottle did change occur. Using an overhead David showed a lot of people going in different directions apparently but then he overlaid it with the shape of a body ie this was the Body of Christ controlled by the power of the Spirit. This is difficult for many Church leaders who feel they should be in charge but it seems that often when they have as it were tried to 'pop out of the bottle' their congregation tries to hold them in-

But our God called us to love each other as well as to love him and he is changing and moving us on in the power of His Spirit.
So where does this leave me? I am not sure- I have waited and prayed for years- perhaps  it is time to alter course and step out into the unknown.