The Church - A Hospital for Sinners?

               As far as I can tell by "googling", this quote is attributed to the great theologian Abigail Van Buren of "Dear Abby" fame. I was first introduced to it 10 - 15 years ago when our church was looking for a pastor and a candidate used this quote as the theme of his message. He wasn't hired but everyone loved the concept (except me) and today that church uses it as their advertising slogan. On a personal note, my 82 year old mother-in-law, who attends that church, hates the slogan and doesn't even want to go back, mainly I believe because at some level she puts hospitals in the same category as nursing homes, a place where healthy 82 year olds don't want to go. Since I am a doctor and actually like going to the hospital I object to it too but for different reasons.
             I understand the concept and what it is trying to say, which is good. How many of us have answered skeptic's objections that the church is full of sinners or hypocrites by saying, "where else would you want them?" And as we are witnessing we have answered those who say, "I need to clean up my act before I come to church" by saying something to the effect of "that is where we learn how to clean up our acts" or something pithy like "everyone here is a beggar just looking for bread" or "if you are perfect you don't need to come here because you will ruin us." But somehow all this has led to the concept that the church is a "hospital for sinners". The picture I get with this is "Come to our church and we give grace. No matter how much you mess-up (because "sin" is narrow minded) during the week come here and get forgiven, restored, built back up in a non judgmental atmosphere to face the temptations of the world on Monday morning. You can list the Bible characters on one hand who didn't make mistakes (sins) and Jesus is a faithful high priest and went through the same temptations as you and I and understands. If we were perfect it wouldn't be called grace."
                  The problem with those truths (and I agree that is all true) is that the picture I get of the church in the Bible is something less defeated. I see a church that the gates of hell can't stand against(Matt. 16:18). I see a church where liars were struck dead(Acts 5:5,10). I see a church which was instructed to kick sinners out of it(1 Cor.5). I see a church where people were afraid to join(Acts 5:13). I see a church that served as a "hospital" for people that got beat down(Acts 28:15) and up(Acts 4 & 5) from boldly taking the gospel to a hostile unbelieving world. This is the church I see in the Bible.
                  So what are some better analogies?
                  How about The Church - A MASH unit for Saints. This would obviously incorporate the idea that we are in a war and as we are on the front lines we will get attacked. We will lose friends, be mocked, excluded, discouraged, lose jobs, (wow, we Western Christians have it rough) but when we come to church we are surrounded by others who have had the same things happen to them and we don't, like Elijah, feel like we are the only ones and get discouraged. We get prayed over, ministered to by the Holy Spirit, patched up and sent back into battle again.
                 How about The Church - A Boot Camp for Saints. Well, where does the idea of attracting sinners and grace fit in, you might ask. How about here. First of all, when we are born again we no longer have the identity of "sinners" - we are now "saints", so the whole "hospital for sinners" implies the church's identity is found in unbelievers which  is flawed. But yet the fact remains we are sinful and need sanctification. Isn't that what an army boot camp does; it takes the raw "newbie" and turns him (her) into a soldier ready to fight the battle. Rather than coddling to his(her) weaknesses and saying, "that's Ok, we are all weak" they receive intensive training exposing and removing of weaknesses so that the recruit becomes ready to stand against the foe.
Using the whole "coddling" and military theme reminds me of a commercial;

                 At this point I would be remiss in this day and age of atrocities to mankind done in the name of faith, not to quote Paul who says that our foe is not our fellow man. In fact they are POWs to the real foe, the Devil.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Eph. 6:12

 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. 2Cor.10:3,4

 And John talked about overcoming our foe, Satan, with the blood of Christ and our testimony(Rev 12:10,11) even if it means going as sheep before wolves and being killed, not killing, as we take a stand for Christ.

             So take your choice playground or battlefield but I think the Biblical model is battlefield    and like this video clip, you have to choose one or the other because the two don't mix. (if you have any better analogies feel free to post them in comments)  

Addendum: I saw this video and it kind of speaks to what I am saying: