The first thing to do is to realize when most churches originate, this is in the first century shortly after the destruction of Israel by the Romans — by those completely flabbergasted that the chosen people were gone — who booted them out of their country and on top of that demolished the temple.
Some just witnessed the gifts like healing, raising the dead etc. and all of that was gone. This is when spiritualization saw the light of day and it was used to counter everything they didn’t understand, which was and is quite a lot. For those interested History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff is an interesting read, although it is from a church perspective it has valuable information.
For those who read the works of the believers of the early centuries, it is clear they didn’t think about what they could have known, but just wanted a solution, any solution and they wanted it now. The basics of what they did is simple, they said: Hmm, Israel is gone, so God couldn’t have meant Israel… He must have meant « the church » — which is us — so if we read « church » where God promises all the good things to Israel and leave Israel where God punishes Israel, we’re good to go.
Now we have a truck load of different « churches » and they all think they are the true church. Here too Satan uses the « divide and conquer » method with great success.
What actually is a « church »? Biblehub has a good page on it, read it if you like. Below Appendix 186 of the Companion Bible:
The only thing we can have against « churches » is the misrepresenting and abuse of the word and with that of the institution. What « church » do you belong to? Or in other words, what does God call you out to?
See also my « The Truth is in Scripture, not in « Church » doctrine. » piece.
Aristarkos