if you stay at home it's difficult to be part of a real community and Joel (I watched a little of his stuff on youtube) does say quite a lot about relationships and community. tv is pretty one-way.
the other point: about walking in the spirit and not in the flesh. It's a great passage because it pretty well sums up the whole point of Christian life and your six days wrestling with it is a good start to a journey that, if you stay faithful, will take you a lifetime.
Perhaps you could compare the Christian life to, say, learning how to play the violin. At the beginning, he can call himself a violinist but the sounds he makes will be horrible. In time though, with lots of practice, he learns to play beautiful music. There is one extra problem with faith though. The things that we think we should be learning arent the things that we do learn. It's almost like unlearning and, instead of making progress, it feels as though we are getting worse. Worse as people and worse as Christians. But that is, strangely enough, a sure sign that we are gradually learning to walk in the spirit. The spiritual life is all about unexpected surprises. If you dont have any, you're probably not walking in the spirit. You'll still be a boylover at the end, but it won't matter.