Three Kinds of Churchgoers

Why do you go to church where you do?

In my lifetime, I’ve encountered three basic categories of church goers.
I’ve experienced them in this order:

One: Familial/Historical
I grew up in a very historically rooted church.  It was wonderful.  We all lived close to each other, and went to school with each other.  My family and most everyone else’s had been there for more than two generations.  Singing familiar hymns and talking with the same people each Sunday was reassuring.  

The Christian experience was primarily about comfort.  You learned and grew spiritually, but the main thing is that you did so with people you knew, with music that was the same.  Change is near anathema to this temperament.  It's usually a tight-knit group that can be weak in welcoming new people.

New contemporary church plants arise, and feed off rejecting this life pattern.  People who want to break away from family and history, will not stay in familial churches.  They will leave, and go find the latest new thing, where typically people do not know each other nearly as well.


Two: Doctrinal
Once I started reading books of Christian doctrine and history in high school, a whole different world opened up to me. (This was not encouraged in the familial church setting.  Nor discouraged.  Just mostly ignored.)  I discovered churches that existed solely because their last church was wrong on issue X.  So people with no other connection at all, gather in a church because they agree on issues X, Y, and Z.  Here is a list of issues I’ve encountered that rally people.  (I’m on the right; there’s probably a whole separate list of issues on the left that may also apply.)  None of these are necessarily dangerous or unbiblical in themselves, but to organize a church around them instead of the gospel is… less than ideal.  Google C.S. Lewis’ “Christianity and…” for more on that.

• Post-millennialism
• Calvinism (predestination, doctrines of grace)
• Family-integration (having your children in worship, no nursery)
• A particular liturgy
• A particular Bible translation/version
• A particular political persuasion

The Christian experience in the doctrinal church is primarily about learning, and reinforcing assumptions of how we should read the Bible.

The music tends to be Psalms or traditional hymns.
New church plants will arise in this stream, usually breaking away from churches going liberal.
If you force me to choose between these three categories (though that’s not the goal – see below), I would choose this one.

Three: Casual – consumeristic
I’ve had least experience with this category.  But this is most people, I think.
Most people go to a church because they like the:
• music
• programs offered for the kids
• preacher’s pulpit presence/personality
• easy access in and out without a lot of pressure to commit further
• total lack of judgment on anything from your recent divorce to having your coffee in the sanctuary 

(I’m getting snarky now, but you get the idea)

This is the consumer mentality that has sadly come to pervade the church, from the secular capitalist free market world.
The music tends to mimic the latest from Nashville/CCM/radio.
The Christian experience is primarily about experiencing and taking in a program that is put on for you, not so much you actively taking part in worship yourself.

CONCLUSION
Now honestly, none of these three should be rejected or adopted completely.  You should go to church somewhere, and should decide based on a combination of these three factors.  Rejecting any one factor completely, or deciding only based on one, is what I’m arguing against.
• Your history should not lock you in, to the church you’ve “always gone to,” nor should you reject your family wholesale.
• Your latest hobby horse ideas shouldn’t completely dictate going to the church that caters to those ideas.  
• Your life stage and felt needs, your convenience or what the church can “do for you” shouldn’t dictate where you go to church.  ("Ask not what your church can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your church!”)

Just be aware of the downsides to each category, to make an informed decision.

This is all rather negative.  I’ll try to write next describing things you should look for in joining a church.