How to choose a church...

Out of the kindness of our church and her elders, Mary Lee and I are away on a two-week study leave for me to work on completing a book tentatively titled, How To Choose a Church: Lessons from the Apostolic Church in Jerusalem. Dear Mary Lee has suggested I post a short excerpt and ask for your prayers for the completion of the work, and that it would serve the Church well. So would you please pray for this work?

Maybe it would be good to mention that most of the posts, but particularly the last two--on divorce and remarriage, and why David and I still call ourselves "evangelicals"--were written some time ago and, since then, have been awaiting posting.

Here's the preface...

PREFACE

For about fifteen years, now, Mary Lee and I have ministered in a university community where a large part of our congregation moves each summer. Once or twice, we’ve lost as many as a quarter of our members in a year, most of them leaving shortly after commencement for graduate school or a job in a new location. So we have a steady stream of members asking us, “Do you know a good church in Nashville,” or “Do you have any recommendations for how to choose a church?”

Sometimes we can recommend a church. More commonly, though, one of our pastors meets with the member, gives him a few contacts in his new city, and makes a couple suggestions on how to choose a new church home. Like many of the questions we answer over and over again, we began to wonder whether there was a helpful book we could recommend? Nothing too long. Just something to provide a start in the right direction.

For years, I was in the habit of saying the best question to ask of a church’s elders or pastor was whether they practiced church discipline. There are so many factors in making the choice of a church home that, rather than listing them all, I thought this would be a silver bullet, able to pierce to the heart of the matter, quickly weeding out those congregations that didn’t fear God and were unconcerned about holiness.

Hearing back from our members the responses they got to that question, though, it became apparent there were few churches that would admit to not practicing church discipline. Typically, the elder or pastor would trot out a case of discipline—sometimes many years earlier—that had involved a notorious sinner. He’d recount how they’d excommunicated the man. Then he’d look at our former member and ask if he had any other questions?

Trouble was, the cases used as illustrative of each church’s commitment to discipline almost always involved a crime or some serious sexual sin; never greed, gossip, or divisiveness—things that were more a matter of subjective judgment than objective fact. Also, the examples the pastor or elder gave always involved the formal disciplines of public censure or excommunication. They would never speak of the normal discipline a healthy church carries on week in, week out—from the pulpit through correction and rebuke, as a part of conversations before or after Sunday school classes, or during the fellowship of a weekly home fellowship group.

This is to say that everyone thought of discipline only in terms of the formal response of a church to sin that had become so notorious that the shame of not dealing with it had become painful enough for the church’s elders (or deacons) that their commitment not to cast the first stone was finally overcome by their stronger commitment to avoid the scorn of their congregation.

Maybe you’ll understand my saying that this is a very limited understanding of the discipline of the Apostolic church as its inner community life is recorded for us in the New Testament. But more on this later.

As the years went by, it became clear we’d have to come up with a few more suggestions of questions to ask in choosing a church. This book is the result.

Although our church is reformed in its doctrinal commitments, with the Westminster Standards part of our Constitution, I’m hopeful this book won’t be too offensive to brothers who aren’t reformed. Rather, I hope what I’ve written is sufficiently anchored in the record Scripture provides us of the Apostolic church that a broad cross-section of evangelical or Bible-believing Christians will find it helpful. Because finally, it has not been my purpose to convince readers of the correctness of my own personal preferences regarding this or that aspect of church life, but to show what Scripture commands concerning the worship and fellowship of the Household of Faith, the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth, the precious Bride of Christ.

May the Holy Spirit use this little work to help you find a church where you and your loved ones may grow into maturity in Jesus Christ, kept safe for the great Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

Comments

[Keith LaMothe]

May the Lord bless your work, this would be very helpful indeed; my church is very near to the University of Georgia, and we have a similarly large percentage of people whom the Lord will scatter throughout the nation (and world) in the rather near future.

A few thoughts:
- check the website; make sure the church either lacks a website or has one where the self-promotion doesn't rise to nausea levels
- check if the pastor and/or elders are actually qualified for their positions (including the fact that they are men) -- wait, I just reminded Tim Bayly that women pastors are a bad thing, nevermind...
- if the church posts text or audio copies of the sermons, listen to them. The proper examination of example teaching would be a whole chapter unto itself, but one major point is whether the pastor addresses the sins of his congregation.

[Robert Woodyard]

May the Lord richly bless you with clarity of thought and discernment, and good stewardship of the precious gift of time you have been given.

Grasping for a quick answer to give a clue as to where to look first, I have sometimes suggested looking to see if the church has an evening service. If they don't it doesn't mean they might not be a great church, but if they do, it is at least a good indicator for looking more closely. It says something about their sense of the Sabbath and the importance of public worship.

[Michael Foster]

Tim,

I'm excited for this book. I've got friends moving all over the place all of the time and a work like this one would be of great use to the body! Em and I will keep you before the throne.

[Ross]

One benchmark you could use is, "does this church have ministries for which you have a 'knack' and in which you could serve?" What I mean is that if one's passion is, say, for working with seniors, then (all other things held equal) it would be sensible to find a church which had a ministry focus in this area.

(On that basis, when I next have to find a church, I will probably look for one which has a strong student mission and ministry core; as that has become an enthusiasm of mine in the last few years).

[Michael Foster]

Ross, why not join a church for the exact opposite reason? Why not go where your gift doesn't exist? Why not find a church thats weakness would be met by your strength?

[Ross]

Fair point, but "been there, done that". The end result of going to a church whose weak suit lay in the area of my strong suit, was that my keen desire to contribute in my strong suit was carefully ignored, and I was dumped instead into a particular service area because no-one else was prepared to do it; and I ended up being thoroughly taken for granted as a result.

[Michael Foster]

Thats too bad. If what you say is true, I suspect we will have more and more churches which have little need with stockpiles of gifts and churches that have great need with no hope of relief.

[Keith LaMothe]

Here's another one, somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

Right after the benediction, hit your stopwatch and see how long it takes for the parking lot to clear.

[Kamilla]

Keith,

With that criterion - I am not sure whether my church would fail miserably or pass with flying colors! It depends upon which result you're looking for - you didn't say.

Kamilla

[Keith LaMothe]

It depends on why the people are staying or leaving; the fellowship hall might be at another location, the preacher might have just given them the scare of their lives, the ladies' gossip club might meet after service in the same building, the building might be a rental where the congregants are ushered away ipso pronto by an elder to avoid violating the rental agreement... but there's also churches where there's no extenuating circumstances and the congregation scatters like the four winds as soon as is socially acceptable so as to most efficiently dispense with the obligation of being in the presence of the Lord and one another.

[Sam Steinmann]

If you want a real test, here would be mine:

1) Does anyone notice that you are a visitor? Does everyone notice that you are a visitor and welcome you?

2) Does anyone invite you for lunch?

If everyone knows you're a visitor, and several people invite you for lunch, you've found a church that is a community, as it should be.

Ross,

May I note that I was once at a church where my strongest (in my estimation) gifts were not needed, and which asked me to serve in several ways that were not very aligned with my (self-perceived) strengths; the experience was both humbling and sanctifying, and I look back on it as a great benefit.