Do We Have An Obligation to Attend a Neighborhood Church?

Anthony Bradley is quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers.  Today he is beyond provocative when he seems to suggest that, if we are members of a denomination, we have an obligation to attend the church nearest our home.  Here are a few of the money quotes:

As a rule, I generally attend the church in my denomination that's closest to my house NO MATTER WHAT. Why? Well, I thought that churches exist and are physically located to impact local community (geographically positioned near the building). I don't understand at all how it's possible to justify going to a good church that's NOT in your own neighborhood UNLESS you've sold out to the idol of personal preferences. Other reasons?

This is what privitized faith does: it arrests your passion for local mission.

Don't missionaries live in the communities where they "mission?" Wait, American Christians aren't misisonaries they're mostly church attenders served by various church-oriented programs.

And:

For a denominationally connected person to drive past a denominational church in their neighborhood to find one that best fits their personal preferences is, as some would say, pretty lame and immature. The Romans Catholics are right about the parish model. There is no biblically legitimate justification for choosing a church because you like the music or the preaching is better or the church has the programs you want to meet your needs.

Here are some pushbacks to Anthony's position, and in offering them I am not criticizing his position because I am on board in many ways.  I am just thinking out loud, or I should say thinking through my keyboard, about how I might justify preaching and teaching this to skeptics, as well as making sure for myself that these things are well founded.

1. Theology - a theologically driven person may find that the neighborhood denominational church has differing theological convictions on matters that are of prime importance to said theologically driven person.

2. Mission - most churches aren't missional.  What happens to the missionally minded person who goes to a church that is not missionally minded?  Will said missionally minded person find himself at odds with the leadership of the church, will this be the kind of church that people in the neighborhood will come to.

Those are just a couple of knee jerk reactions and I would hope there are others out there who have some better thoughts and will share them in the comments.  I do encourage you to read all of Anthony's post and pay particular attention to the comments on his post and in particular to the dialogue that he has with my good buddy Dignan.  Dignan drives some distance to his church on Sundays, passing a closer church of the same denomination and Dignan and Anthony have a good discussion on whether or not he should switch churches.