I don't know if you noticed (but I bet you really did) that every time I mentioned church, I would leave out the article. No, I am not a non-native-English speaker who doesn't know when to use articles. I was actually educated in an elite college-prep school in Hawaii, where I was made very conscious of proper English grammar I went to a second-tier private liberal arts college in California. I received a Ph.D. in chemistry. So I am educated. Well, you may say that my credentials don't guarantee anything about my ability to write or know the rules of English grammar.
Let me reassure you about something, you may catch me being sloppy and lazy. But you won't catch me being ignorant about English grammar.
