A friend recently e-mailed me to ask for advice as he looks for a church to join in a new town that he'd moved to with his young family.
Part of what I wrote back may be of help to others, so I thought I'd paste it here.
I’d suggest you take a careful balance between rushing to commit to the first church that looks right (it’s an important decision, so it’s worth trying a few, and visiting each more than once), and never committing (at the end of the day, you need to commit to a local church and not keep hopping from one to the other). The one you mention has a few aspects that would draw me to it, and a few that would make me think twice. At the end of the day, there’s no substitute to going along.
Perhaps it would help if I share the 3 principles I advise people to bear in mind as they consider which church to join.
- Find a church where the truth of God is taught. Belief in the Bible as God’s word is a key plank in mainstream Christianity, and not all churches hold this, and those that do don’t always hold to it in practice. Does the teaching / preaching help you to understand the Bible better, and to make the connections from it to living for Jesus in everyday life. Is the Bible treated as God’s own word to us, where our job is to learn from it humbly (so that we sit beneath it), or is it merely one reference work for the preacher as he/she brings their own ideas (so that we stand beside it), or even something to correct or apologise for (so that we stand over it).
- Find a church where the love of God is shown. Jesus taught that the world will know we are his disciples by the way we love one another. A genuine Christian church will be marked by true concern of one member for another, a habit of hospitality as new people are welcomed (as opposed to the church regulars forming a comfortable clique) and as people are invited into each other’s homes. Some people try to pit this against the test of truth, as though the loving church is one in which nobody is ever criticised; that is, of course, a false distinction, because sometimes the loving thing is to say hard things to someone else. How hard things are said when they need to be is, however, a good indicator of true love in a church.
- Find a church where faith in God is exercised. Ephesians chapter 4 pictures the church as the body of Christ; the metaphor serves a number of purposes, but one of the points is that we are one and yet all different. The risen Christ has given different people different abilities or gifts, so that each part can do its work. As every member of a church uses their abilities to server others in the church and in the wider community, the church is healthy. So find a church where people are active in service, where it isn’t just 2 or 3 leaders who do everything but the whole church that serves. And find a church where your family would be able to serve too – not because they’re desperate (“at last, someone who can do that”) but because you become part of the family.
All of that is far more important than the usual considerations of the time of the service, the denomination the church is affiliated to, and the style of music that is sung.
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