Sadly, many churches I am familiar with do almost zero charitable works with the money the collect from constituents.
Many of the constituents will organize charitable events or activities themselves (food drive, etc.), and use the church as a connection point to find other members willing to help/volunteer/etc. But the church employees/leadership/etc. don't do anything, nor is any of the funds used on furthering that.
Many other churches I know do no charity other than funding their own missionaries to go try to convert others--something many people may not even consider a charitable work at all.
It's nice so many of you have churches that are active in doing charitable things. I've seen far too little of that, sadly.
I like GuitarStv's idea of looking at what % is charitable based. We should prorate their taxes based on that, and make it 0% taxes if it's above a certain threshold (80%? 90%?). Then the churches you guys are talking about, that are actually helping people, can benefit like any other nonprofit who gets tax breaks.
And the faux-social clubs that gather money for their own purposes but claim tax benefits from the government won't be able to take from the taxpayers they way they are now.
I don't think churches as an institution all are this way, but I do think many exist for their own glorification/improvement, and have, historically. The good ones are fairly few and far between, in my experience. Again, awesome that many of you have found some of the exceptions. :)