Let’s be honest: finding a church can feel a lot like dating: there are many criteria to be met, a lot of awkward encounters, and some heartbreak along the way. Is there any way to make it easier?
I can’t promise you that a church search will ever be easy, but it’s helpful to go into it at least knowing what you’re looking for. I pray that some of the following will put you on the right track and give you confidence in knowing when you’ve found a church where you can grow in your Christian faith.
What Exactly is Church?
Most of us have been to church at least a few times. Whether you attend weekly or you’re a CEO (Christmas & Easter Only), we’re generally aware of what goes on during a church service. But what precisely is occurring as we sing songs, listen to God’s Word preached, and participate in the Lord’s Supper? Is there a deeper significance to these things?
When it comes down to it, all of what occurs during a Sunday morning service is worship. Not just the singing, all of it is worship. Those who profess Christ as Lord and Savior are coming together as the body of Christ to worship Him and remember what He has done for us.
Why do we do this? Because we’re forgetful. This doesn’t mean that the truths of the gospel have completely left our memory, but that they will get buried beneath the cares of this world if we don’t constantly bring them to the forefront of our minds. If you ever read the Old Testament, it is basically a repetitive story of Israel forgetting about God, falling into calamity, remembering God, and then falling back into that same cycle again. The same can happen to us today if we’re not constantly reminding ourselves of the truth of the gospel.
Can’t I just do all this on my own, without going to church?
No.
That’s a bit terse, but it’s true. Hebrews explicitly commands Christians to meet together: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Why is this? Why can’t we just “go it alone”?
One of the primary reasons for this, which is also discussed in Hebrews, is that we have a distorted view of ourselves and our actions. Modern psychology calls this the Fundamental Attribution Error: we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.
What does this mean? It means that we may not recognize bad behavior in ourselves because we see the intention of our action rather than the action itself. We may neglect to spend time with family and see it as ok because “I’m spending that time working to provide for my family”. Or we may develop a pattern of harshness towards others, and justify it by claiming that “we’re just being honest”. We need the outside perspective of others to notice this type of drifting and lovingly call us to repentance.
We’re also called to attend church because human beings are designed by God to need each other. In the early chapters of Genesis, God says that “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). There is wonderful community and fellowship within the members of the Trinity, and as bearers of God’s image we are likewise made for community.
You can't be sufficiently edified through your television or computer. Sermon videos and podcasts can only do so much. It requires the presence of other Spirit-filled Christians that God will graciously use in your life to make you more like himself.
Now that we’ve established what church is and why it’s necessary and good, we can examine what things should be considered when looking for a church.
Is the Church Healthy?
While there is no perfect church, there are churches which are healthy and those which are not.
And just like determining the health of a person, we need to identify the correct “measuring sticks” that help us to discern whether a church is a healthy one. Oftentimes, people will judge a church’s health by its growth in attendance or by the level of emotion felt on a Sunday morning, but these measures can be misleading.
I don’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel in this area, as we have a wonderful resource in the form of Mark Dever’s “9 Marks of a Healthy Church” - both a book and website. This organization has developed nine areas that help determine how healthy a church is:
- Expositional Preaching
- Biblical Theology
- The Gospel
- Conversion
- Evangelism
- Membership
- Discipline
- Discipleship
- Leadership
I strongly encourage you to learn more about all these church health factors over at www.9marks.org.
Is the Church a Fit Doctrinally?
Just like we shouldn’t be looking for the “perfect church”, we also shouldn’t expect to find a church that is doctrinally perfect or homogeneous. That being said, we should expect a true church to teach the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and should hopefully agree on most of the secondary doctrines of our faith.
In general, there are three tiers of doctrine: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Not Compromising on Primary Issues
Primary doctrines are things that divide Christian from non-Christian. Therefore, every Christian church should be espousing primary doctrines.
These include historically accepted doctrines such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, original sin, and the bodily resurrection of Christ, among other things. If you find yourself attending a church that is questionable on issues such as these, or outright rejects them, I would suggest that you find another church quickly or at least confront the church leadership if you’re unclear on their official stance.
Understanding Secondary Issues
Secondary church doctrines are where the majority of your decision-making will be made. These are issues where true professing believers in Christ differ, and your stance on them can dictate what church or denomination you end up attending.
The famous two issues in this realm are the oft-debated issue of baptism, and the debate over spiritual gifts.
In terms of baptism, many true Christians believe that infants should be baptized (paedobaptism), while other Christians hold that only adults professing faith in Christ should be baptized (credobaptism). Your stance on this issue has a large impact on where you attend church. Imagine you are a paedobaptist: you would feel compelled to baptize your child, but if you attend a credobaptist church, that would not be permitted as it is not held as a valid baptism. This would affect the type of church that you attend.
Or on the issue of spiritual gifts: many believers hold to cessationism, the belief that the higher gifts such as tongues and prophecy ceased after the apostles, while other Christians believe that they continue in the modern-day church (continuationism). A continuationist would have a difficult time attending somewhere that doesn’t believe in these higher gifts, especially if that person believes that they have been gifted with one of these gifts. Therefore it is generally wise to attend a church that lines up with your beliefs on secondary issues such as these.
Other secondary doctrines include the role of women in church leadership, the role of human free will in salvation, and beliefs on the specifics of the Lord's Supper.
These doctrines are very important, but they aren't ultimate. Therefore, Christians who differ on secondary issues can and should come together on doctrines where there is agreement. One recent example of this is the increasing unity between Baptists and Presbyterians - two groups that differ on the secondary issue of baptism but find common ground on Christianity's core beliefs and some secondary issues such as salvation.
Not Overemphasizing Tertiary Issues
Tertiary doctrines are the lowest level of importance, and while still important, are often the issues that cause unnecessary division within the church. These are doctrines that members of the same church can disagree on, yet still continue to worship and serve together in their congregation effectively.
Some of these issues that are common today include differences on the geological age of the earth, beliefs regarding the end times (eschatology), and stances on how church government should be structured.
In the spirit of promoting peace and unity within the Church, we must put these doctrines in their proper significance, not disregarding them completely, but also not overemphasizing them to the point of causing discord within the body of Christ.
Some Quick Points on Polity
Now I know I just said that the structure of church government is a tertiary issue, which is true. But it is helpful to understand how your church is structured and how it affects your call to biblically submit to the authority that God has graciously placed in your life.
Without going into detail, there are generally three forms of church polity: episcopal, presbyterian, and congregational. These three differ on how the hierarchy of church leadership looks, but all of them have variants of the roles of elders and deacons - the two church leadership positions described in Scripture.
Elders
Elders are the “shepherds”, or spiritual leaders of their congregation. They have the responsibility to lead their flock closer to Christ and to defend it from false teachers. Qualifications for this office are found in 1 Timothy 3, and include such characteristics as being hospitable, gentle, and able to teach.
Therefore, elders take the primary role in teaching the Scriptures and discipling members of the congregation. Depending on the type of church government, the pastor of a church is typically considered the “teaching elder”, meaning that he has the same level of authority as the other elders but is tasked with the preaching of the Word during corporate worship.
Elders also handle church membership and church discipline. Becoming a church member means submitting yourself to the authority of these elders. Therefore, ignoring the instructions of your elders and refusing to repent can lead to church discipline, such as being refused the Lord’s Supper or even removal from church membership.
Elders are a tremendous blessing to a church - they lovingly lead the people of their congregation to maturity in their faith.
Deacons
While elders handle the spiritual matters of the church, deacons handle the physical issues that arise. This office was instituted in Acts 6, where we see seven men chosen to attend to the physical needs of the church so that the elders can focus on the preaching of God’s Word.
The existence of this office indicates that our physical selves matter. It is easy to slip into thinking that only spiritual things are important, but God cares about our entire being. Physical matters such as poverty, sickness, and loneliness greatly affect our relationship with the Lord, so deacons aim to mitigate these circumstances and foster a better situation where people can continue to grow in their faith.
Why I Love My Church
I’m personally a member of Kutztown Bible Fellowship Church, which doctrinally fits into the Reformed Baptist camp. During my 4+ years attending here is when I’ve really come to love and appreciate the institution of the church.
Growing up in the church in the 90s and early 2000s, I was somewhat influenced by the “seeker sensitive” movement in the church. This movement sought to modernize much of what the church was all about in an effort to attract people who had become disillusioned with Christianity. So we started seeing pastors in Hawaiian shirts, contemporary worship bands, and just a generally laid back atmosphere when it came to church.
So when I began to attend my current church, it was a bit of an adjustment. The worship was simple: just a piano and a mixture of hymns and some modern songs. The service and sermon were longer than I was used to, which as someone with a short attention span, took time to get used to.
Regardless, I continued to attend, and haven’t left. I got used to the service length and came to love the lyrical richness and singability of the music. I loved the sense in which it is relaxed: it’s in no way a performance or a show. I used to get annoyed in churches when something got messed up, worrying about how it would be perceived by visitors. Now mistakes are reminders that we’re average people who are worshipping God and occasionally screw up, and that’s normal and ok.
I like that my church is small. Growing up, my desire was the complete opposite. I wanted my church to be the biggest and best, the envy of all the other local churches. And it’s good to want a lot of people to be attending your church. But having a small church allows more people to serve, and enables deeper relationships with more people.
I appreciate the genuine fellowship that we experience at KBFC. I’ve heard many visitors note how upon the conclusion of the service, people just don’t get up and leave, but stay and talk with each other for quite a while. It is one thing to be fellow church members, but another thing entirely to be able to call them your closest friends.
I also love the godly leadership that we have. When you realize the significance of elders in your life, you’ll appreciate it when they truly care about leading the church in a biblical direction. Submitting to their leadership is quite easy because I know that they have the best of intentions for me and the rest of the congregation.
Let’s face it -- church isn’t easy. It’s a collection of very different people coming together under the banner of Christ. But the importance of church and church attendance can’t be understated.
If you’re checking out a church, don’t base your impression of it on just one Sunday service. Commit to attending for at least three months to get a real picture of the health of that particular congregation. Active involvement in a local church is a gift that God has given us to not only grow in our personal devotion to Him, but also to be able to reach into the lives of those around us and impact their lives for eternity.
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