Picking the Right Church

 

I live in one of the most densely “churched” areas in the United States, right in the heart of the Bible Belt. You could almost literally throw a rock in any direction and hit a church there are so many in my area. Having so many options for churches can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s great that people have so many options for churches and there is a great network of ministries that churches work together to accomplish. On the other hand, for people looking for a church home, it can be overwhelming because there are dozens of options to choose from. I’ve talked to several people looking for a church, and while I always let them know that they are welcome at ours, there is generally one piece of advice that I give them: just pick one and go.

A seminary professor of mine instilled this mindset in me on my very first day on campus. It was during orientation, and he was giving his “welcome to the campus” speech and said he knew that a lot of us had moved to the area just for school and would need to find a church home for the time we would be at Seminary. His advice was to pick a church, visit 3 times, and then decide whether to stay or go. If you visit more than 3 times, he said, stay there. Pick that church and get plugged in. While I don’t think this is a hard and fast way to pick a church family to join, I do get and agree with the sentiment. Pick whatever “cutoff” you want, but the idea is that if you go to a church a couple of times and there aren’t any major issues, just stick with that church and get involved. No church is going to be perfect, and we can’t endlessly search for just the right place to join because we would never find that church! 

Our ultimate goal for joining a church should be to find a community that we can plug into and serve with. You can do that at any church anywhere as long as it is not preaching heresy or neglecting the gospel. The first thing you should be looking for isn’t whether you like the aesthetics, or the style of music or preaching, amenities, etc. The first thing we should look for is whether we can use our spiritual gifts to serve the body and the community. The reality is that if we view church in that way, God can use us in any church to benefit that body of believers and make it a stronger, healthier church.

Now, there is a lot more that goes into choosing the right church for you or your family. You can’t just throw a dart at a map and then commit. There will need to be a lot of introspection, prayer, and research done before you make any final decisions, but I think too many people are overthinking their decisions and making minor things major things. The reality is that we just need to pick a church and go to it. If we are faithful to commit to serving a body of believers, God will bless our time there and use us to make the church a stronger and healthier church. So if you are in the market for a church, just pick one and go. God will take care of the rest.