For the past year, I’ve been on the hunt for a new church home. Having settled myself in a new town and worked to re-orient my life to be centered here as much as possible, I started out by visiting several local churches. In every case, I ended up feeling disappointed with the experience for one reason or another before moving on to the next church on my list.
I’ve had a working list of things I want from a church home. And maybe because certain traits of my previous church spoiled me, it’s been difficult to find a new church that lives up to the standard I’ve sought. I’m not looking for a perfect church, of course. No such thing exists. But I do want a church that fits me well and where I can feel comfortable calling home.
Desirable Traits
As I said there have been a handful of key factors I’ve looked for in each church I’ve visited. Some are more important to me than others, but together they form a collective whole that I believe would help me grow both in my own faith and in fellowship with other believers. Here are a just a couple of those traits.
- Solid church doctrine. There are hundreds of denominations in the world, thousands if you care to count churches technically in the same denomination but at different places on the theological spectrum. One of the most important factors to me is a church where the doctrine is not only Biblically sound but also offers a level of depth that feeds my soul and enhances my faith. Far too many churches are content to merely scrape the surface of Scripture, providing more of an unfulfilling dessert that’s sweet to the taste but provides no real sustenance. I want a theological meal, something I can sink my teeth into and nourish my faith, grow my faith. And that is something that is surprisingly difficult to find.
- Warm, welcoming people. A church is not the building or the property upon which it sits. A church is the people that make it up. Christ himself made this clear during His ministry and in His final words to his disciples. The Apostle Paul extended this further in his writings to the various churches, admonishing those who were failing to fulfill their obligation to their members and encouraging those that were successfully meeting this need. In my search for a new church home, nearly every place I visited the people were aloof, distant. They weren’t cold and unwelcoming, per se. They simply failed to greet me or even acknowledge me. This is a common problem in many churches. Social groups are already established, and church members spend a great deal of their time catching up with people they already know rather than looking for and welcoming newcomers. I already feel jaded by judgmental Christians, so it’s important to me that any church body I become a part of is willing to step away from its established comfort zone in order to make an unfamiliar face feel welcome.
Not Asking For Much
As you can see, I’m not looking for much. I really only have the two primary criteria. Welcome me, accept for who I am, help me feel like I already belong, and feed my faith. I admit, for several months I simply gave up looking. It’s an exhausting process to shop churches around, to look at one church one week, then check out another the next — lather, rinse, repeat. And people exhaust me, especially with my anxiety and panic disorder. Throwing myself into a fresh group of completely new faces is always a challenge, and my agoraphobic tendencies have made it easy to simply give up my search and be content receiving my teaching through online media. But that doesn’t provide the support of a church body, and that’s something that every believer needs in their daily walk with Christ.
The First Surprise
This last week was the first time in several months I tried out a new church. A friend recommended it to me, and referrals are always welcome. Several of the churches I’ve tried in the past were based on referrals from people I knew. But in this case the referral came from someone whose faith I deeply admire and has proven inspirational to my own spiritual growth.
And I was pleasantly surprised with this church. I felt welcomed. The church itself felt alive and warm in a way I haven’t experienced in a very long time. People talked to me as if I had always attended there, even though it was my first visit. The size of the church, too, was closer to what I was looking for. I grew up in a small, country church, but for the last 20 years or so, most of the churches I’ve attended have been large mega-churches with several thousand members. It’s easy to get lost in a church that size. This church fell somewhere in between on the spectrum — not so small that it was cliquish, but not so large as to get completely lost in the crowd, either.
Even better, the sermon was more than a shallow, feel-good treatise in which Scripture was barely involved. It actually had substance, depth, and meat on the proverbial bones. It wasn’t the deep theological dive I’m generally used to, but then I haven’t necessarily been looking for that. I know that few and far between are the types of pastors that are capable of teaching the Bible on a level that borders on a college class. I just want a pastor who is willing to take Scripture and actually focus on it as the centerpoint of his sermon rather than treating it like a side dish to occasionally be dipped into. And if this one sermon is any indication, this pastor is willing to do just that.
The Second Surprise
The next surprise is the denomination of the church — Methodist. Having grown up all my life as a Baptist or a nondenominational (which is essentially Baptist just without the label), it surprised me a bit to find that the first church I felt truly at home in was Methodist. This is probably because there are some inherent theological differences between Baptists and Methodists, but since my journey of faith the last couple of years has involved breaking down everything I once believed in an effort to rebuild a theology that is my own (rather than one forced upon or expected of me), it makes a kind of sense that maybe a Baptist church is no longer where I belong.
Certainly some of my theological views have changed over the years. And for the past year, I haven’t considered my beliefs to fall squarely into any one denominational theology. I still don’t. I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the past months evaluating just exactly what I believe, what I don’t, and what I need to delve further into to find answers. And for the first time in my life, I haven’t felt the pressure to know all those answers up-front and immediately. I have time to study and learn more, to re-examine everything I thought I knew under a new light and with fresh eyes and decide for myself what the Bible says about various topics.
I’ve spent the last couple of days since visiting the Methodist church doing extensive research and reading, comparing Methodist theology to everything I’ve been taught as a Baptist. I’ve re-read passages of Scripture I’ve read dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. I’ve examined doctrinal statements and commentaries, as well as historical summaries of the theologians and groups upon which both Baptist and Methodist theology have been based. I’ve even started to chart my research using a mindmap to keep everything organized and straight so I can see all the connections and progressions and their various links to key passages of Scripture.
And my own theology continues to shape itself and reshape continuously as I do so. I suspect it will for quite a while to come and, frankly, if I’m doing it right, it will constantly change and be tweaked for the rest of my life as I learn more.
The Third, Final, and Perhaps Most Welcome Surprise
One of the things I always do when visiting a new church is to fill out a visitor card. I like to let the church know I’ve been there, that I’m new, and that I’m looking for a new place to settle. Up until this week, not one church has ever contacted me to follow-up and welcome me.
So, I was surprised when I received a personal visit from one of the pastors from the Methodist church yesterday, the day after my visit, to welcome me, to say hello and get to know me a little better, and to pray with and for me. That’s not something I have experienced before and by itself already went far above and beyond my previous church home to make me feel welcome and wanted, like a human being who actually mattered. The pastor and I had a nice chat for about 20 minutes and he left me with materials about the church and an expression of hope that I would visit again.
And I plan to. For the first time I have visited a church that fulfilled the two primary criteria I’ve been looking for — and then some. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s a denomination other than what I’ve spent my whole life under. It doesn’t matter that their theology differs somewhat from what I have always been taught and believed. I’ve had some critical issues with certain aspects of Baptist doctrine for years, anyway, hence the need for me to rebuild my theology from scratch, with discernment from the Holy Spirit, with prayer, and with an open mind that is willing to change, if necessary, if Scripture leads me to believe a change is necessary.
It’s very possible I’ve finally found my new church home. At the very least, it’s worth another visit.
