Three Things to Look for in a Church

Using the same three points from my last post, here are three things to look for in a church.

1. Doctrinal orthodoxy

In our day, if a church isn't "out and proud" about its adherence to the historic Christian faith and the infallible Word of God, it's at least a yellow flag.  Many mainstream evangelical churches want to downplay this, out of a fear of not looking "with it," or scaring people away with too much "doctrine."  Of course, ultra-conservative churches can careen too far the other way and focus ONLY on doctrine, or be self-righteous about being more orthodox than anyone else.

Meta observations are important, here.  What is being assumed by how the Word is preached, how the service is conducted, and how the music is led?  If we take God seriously, we'll take His word and its preaching seriously.  Meeting with Him should be a mix of joyful reverence.  

Key questions to ask:

 - do you believe Scripture is infallible and inerrant, each (verbal) and every (plenary) original word inspired by God?

 - do you adhere to the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds?

 - what other confessions do you adhere to, if any?  (Westminster, Heidelberg, London Baptist, etc.)

 - Do you sense in the announcements or music time that leadership is catering or pandering to your feelings or natural wants?

 - Is the music always and only upbeat, when God's songbook (the Psalms) includes lament and even imprecation?

 - Is there an over-display of emotional affect, implying that we are always happy here?  Or that our emotions are driving what we believe?  

 - If your best friend died 3 days before, would it still make sense to go to church here the next Sunday?  Or would the emotional disconnect be too great?

2. Connectedness

This relates to the first point of my last post (historical/familial churches).  Many churches are either resting on historical relationships too much, or focus on programs to the detriment of relationships.  What you want is a place where you experience people who are intentional about getting to know you - not just hearing it said from leadership but people actually doing this.  You know it when you see hurting people getting attention, care and help.  Programs might be able to foster this more, and give a place for it to happen.  But just going to a class isn't being connected.

Some people are more reserved, and some leadership makes the mistake of pressing people to open up too much and too soon.  But members of the body of Christ need to give and receive from other members to function properly.

Key questions to ask:

 - Is someone at church praying for you for a specific thing right now / this week?  

 - Are you praying for someone at that church?

 - Have you had a longish conversation with anyone recently that got beyond "How are you?"

3. Organization

The last point above was more about the people at the church.  This one is more about the leadership.  

I went through a fairly long phase as a church leader where I thought putting on any program or class was inherently artificial and worked against an organic and connected church body.  I don't believe this any more.

Any group of people needs some level of formal structure, like a body needs a skeleton.  Say the leaders see a need to put evangelism or education or anything specific in front of its people for them to grow in.  They need to not just talk about it, but give them some ways to act on it.

When God created the world He started by forming spaces: heaven and earth, sea and land.  Then He filled them with things.  The leaders' job of organizing is to form spaces and times for their members to do things they are calling for, then trust the Spirit to fill those spaces with people learning and growing.

Many small churches have little organization, and that is fine - IF it's due to smallness.  You can't put on 3 Sunday School classes at once if you have total attendance of 40 people at the Sunday morning worship service.  But often leaders of small churches overlook the guidance they still need to give people:

 - "Who's counting the money, and how?"  

 - "That new member has a passion for prayer, and we could use that to start or beef up our prayer meetings."  

 - "Do we really want Mrs X doing that every week, even if that's what she's always done?"

Finally, it's important to know how the leadership itself is organized.  Most can tell you on paper, but sometimes it is different in actual practice, and that can be hard or impossible to discern.  Three quick but important principles are that a church should have (1) multiple leaders, not just one; (2) accountable in some tangible way to each other (regardless of who's up front most of the time), and (3) to an outside body that oversees them.

Key questions to ask of leaders:

 - how do I get involved if I'm interested in this or that area?

 - who are the leaders and what is their relationship to each other?