The Mezzanine

There's a lot of suspicion here towards church leadership beyond the individual congregation.

Whereas our denominations pretty much ignore church leadership beyond the congregation, even though it's out there somewhere...

(Broad simplification, but:
Anglicans - have bishops who get quoted in the news occasionally. As an Anglican churchgoer, I can tell you that we pretty much go "Oh, how nice, a bishop", smile, and then go back to what we're doing.
Presbyterians/Methodists/Uniting - have national conferences or some such thing, and discuss stuff at great length. Then go back home and change nothing at all.
Baptists - have national conferences which no-one ever notices. They are purely an excuse to swap recipes worship ideas.
Pentecostals/Assemblies of God - just announce "this is our denomination!" and then don't really pay attention to any other churches from the same one.
Salvos/Catholics/miscellaneous - not part of the "main" group, so we have no idea how they operate. *shrugs*)