Should Christians attend a Local Church?

Today at church a couple of the members shared some things that had been on their hearts and minds. One of them made reference to 1 Corinthians 12;12ff about the body having many members. The word that hit me was the word, "MANY". The body is not made up of just a few members. In Acts 2:44 it says that the believers were ALL together. And in verse 46 it says they were together EVERY day. (all caps are mine)

Now one question that comes to mind is, How many members should comprise a single group? Obviously we can't get every single believer together but is it sufficient if only 2 or 3 gather as it indicates in Matthew 18:20? The first thing I would suggest is that the context of that verse seems to be about intercessory prayer; not about church gatherings.
I don't have an actual answer but I'll give you my ideas and see what you think. In 1 Cor. 12:7 it says; "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." It would seem that because God gave certain abilities and spiritual gift to individual members that a single body of believers should have all of those gifts in their midst. So here's a list of what I can find:
In chapter 12:
1. The message of wisdom
2. The message of knowledge
3. Faith
4. Gifts of healing
5. Gifts of miraculous powers
6. Gift of prophesy
7. Gift of distinguishing between spirits
8. Gifts of speaking in different kinds of tongues
9. Gift of interpreting tongues
Then if you go to Ephesians 4:11:
10. Apostles
11. Prophets (kind of covered that but there may be a distinction between someone who has prophetic gifts and someone who is a "prophet")
12. Evangelists
13. Pastors
14. Teachers
Verse 12 gives us the purpose and why these gifts are important: "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up"

So it would seem that at a minimum there would have to be at least 14 members to comprise a complete body.

On a VERY personal note. When I have spoken to Christians who used to attend a church regularly and no longer see that as important, they didn't just wake up one day and come to that decision at random. In every case I am familiar with, it came from having been deeply offended or hurt. Believe me, I GET IT!! I've been there and I still feel some of it every so often. It chokes me up to hear some of your stories, but there is a better way. While people need to deal with having been offended the fact is, there are a LOT of unhealthy churches out there. Jesus said,  "MANY false prophets will appear and deceive many", Matt 24:11. Jesus didn't make the contrast in this case but in other cases the word "many" is contrasted with the word "few". I suppose it's possible that most churches aren't healthy and only a few are. It's not mine to judge but....

So if a healthy church should have a good balance of individuals who have been given individual gifts for building up the body of Christ, how can we easily spot an unhealthy church if you are not well versed in the scripture yet. Here are 2 basic characteristics that I have observed in unhealthy churches:

1. The congregation centers around a single individual personality.

We've seen them and then we've seen them have a "moral failure" and the congregation falls apart. I had a conversation with a senior pastor some time ago and he gave a hypothetical of what would happen if he did something that warranted him being dismissed. He said that the associate pastor would be assigned the senior role. An assistant pastor would be assigned his role and on it would go. In addition, as senior pastor he was subject to the board of elders and he himself had one vote. So no one individual had too much authority. Obviously there are going to be issues as long as imperfect humans are in charge of churches, but it seems like a system of checks and balances would give a good amount of safety. As the pastor talking to me said, if the message is gospel centered and the focus is on Jesus, and not the man in the pulpit. We should be OK.

2. An incomplete view of scripture.

Just as we individuals have our favorite life verses, entire congregations can as well. While it is fine to have our favorite life verses (Mine is Job 19:25) we have to be careful not to form our doctrines out of an unbalanced knowledge of the word. The pastor encouraged the congregation to read through the entire Bible this year. Jesus said we are to live by EVERY word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Not just the parts we like.
I'll mention two study disciplines just to illustrate the pitfalls of having one without the other; causing an unbalanced view. (half of whoever is still reading will be tempted to stop reading here. But please bear with me. haha)

Systematic Theology
Biblical Theology

Systematic theology is where you study certain topics in the bible.
Biblical theology is where one studies the bible to understand what the purpose the writer had in writing.
For example, one might want to study the book of Daniel to see what Daniel can teach us about prayer and fasting. (we've heard of The Daniel Fast) That would be a systematic approach. The biblical theology approach would be to read the book of Daniel to understand the overall purpose the writer had in writing it. With just the systematic approach, it's easy to form entire doctrines based on an incomplete view of scripture. It can easily become heretical, particularly when passages are taken out of the original context. We see that in the prosperity gospel.
If on the other hand, you only have a biblical theology, you will gain a lot of intellectual, head knowledge, but no life application.
The reason I felt it necessary to spend time on this is because it is easy to listen to someone expound on passages on a given subject and believe you are hearing real expository preaching. But is it taken out of context or out of the author's intended meaning? Or, on the flip side, did you hear a sermon about Noah and the ark but it had no relevance for you personally? You need to have both, and solid preaching will give both.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. MY belief is that it is vitally important to belong to a church fellowship. We do have an enemy and it is easy for him to pick us off when we get off by ourselves. God didn't give one person all of the gifts. He gave individual ones to individual people so we could build each other up. I believe he did that because he wants us to be a community of believers. But also, he gave us good information to help us to discern between a good healthy biblical church and one that has embraced heresy.
God bless you all.