How to turn this around?

With no offense intended to you or your question, when people speak of "turning things around", I lose interest very quickly. I think that's because I look back over the last 60 years of my life in the church and wonder if there was ever a time when things were "good". That's not to say that there weren't a lot of good things that came out of my church experience, and for those things I am grateful to God for providing them. Yet I also see how much baggage comes with the Christian experience, and it's a lot. Perhaps the House Church movement hasn't always executed well in delivering the Christian experience either, but it does have one extremely good instict, which is to cut out all of the extra nonsense that the institutional church today delivers in spades. Prior to the Protestant Reformation in 1517, the church had a lock on being the middleman between God and man. The Reformation was supposed to end this practice. But look at the large percentage of Protestant churches today that effectively browbeats their parishoners into believing that the church is the key to the pathway to God. In these churches, Christ can no longer be called its Head. Instead, the whims of its leaders and the rules that it holds fast to are what define the church.

But this is not God's plan for His church. Consider, for example, Jesus' teaching on adultery from Matt 5:27-28...

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart

In other words, it's not just your actions that God is concerned with, but also what's in your heart. This theme runs throughout Scripture. So why then does the church attempt to write rulebook after rulebook of dictates that a Christian must obey to be in right standing before God? And why does it teach that the blood and sacrifice of Christ are there just to fill in the gaps when we (occasionally) sin? Have we learned nothing from Scripture (Psalm 51:1-6)?

Have mercy on me, O God,

  according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

  blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

  and cleanse me from my sin!

3 For I know my transgressions,

  and my sin is ever before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned

  and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

  and blameless in your judgment.

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

  and in sin did my mother conceive me.

6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,

  and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

So if you ask me, "would you like to go back to church the way that it was before?", I would have to ask you what you mean by that. Like most people, I would welcome returning to a time when crime in the streets was less prevalent and public discourse was more respectful. But does this mean that we'd be a "Christian nation"? Far from it. Just because we'd clean up our language or dress up in a suit and tie for the occasional trip to church would mean nothing. As Christians, we need to show the world that we take our sin seriously and recognize that it is only by Christ's merit that we are saved from them. "Living your best life today", a phrase common with many Christians, does not mean that you leave your wife and family because they are harshing your mellow. Nor does it mean that you cheat on your taxes, even if it's to help you pay for Christian school for your kids. It means that you consistently confess to God just how weak you are to do His will, then rest assured that God is "6 merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (Ex 34:6-7)