Did God intend the phenomenon of
“Designer Churches” — where we “shop”
based on our lifestyles, tastes and preferences?
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or most families and individuals, choosing a new church
can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task.
Many times we think we’ve found the right church, stay a few months, and
then realize it’s not the right church and we have to start again from square
one!
Clearly one of the reasons Americans have difficulty in
finding a new church home is because we’re looking for the wrong things. Most of the things we tend to look for in a
church are self-oriented rather than God-oriented. In our consumer-minded society we want a
church that “meets our needs.”
What we’ve forgotten is that we come to church each Sunday
to worship, not have our needs met.
Our God is none other than, “the blessed and only Potentate, the King
of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in
unapproachable light.”
He is worthy of our worship
and that’s why we come! We need
to come to church with hearts fearing and reverencing Him rather than demanding
our “spiritual Big Mac.”
Biblically, the passionate
pre-occupation of all solid local churches and the members within them should
be the following:
·
The
glory of God
·
The
equipping of the saints
·
The
evangelization of the lost
Now granted, those are pretty
broad goals. The question, therefore,
is what exactly do we look for in trying to find and unite with such a
church?
Here are some
practical questions and answers to consider:
1.
Is the church engaged in the expositional preaching of God’s Word,
the Bible? This can be tricky because many churches
today are preaching “from the Bible” about things like relationships, finances,
overcoming hurt, family life and so forth.
But that’s not biblical preaching.
Biblical preaching is God-directed — bringing us to a deeper knowledge
of Christ and a greater love for Him through expositional preaching, “precept
upon precept, line upon line” (Isaiah 28.10).
2.
Does the church’s statement of faith conform to historic, orthodox,
Evangelical Christianity? If so (and more importantly)
is the church presently conforming to its own statement of faith? Critical, “no-compromise” issues include
things like the Trinitarian nature of God, the deity of Christ, inerrancy of
Scripture, total depravity of man, justification by faith alone, the literal
bodily resurrection of Christ, literal six-day creation and so forth. Read and observe carefully!
3.
Are the worship services God-directed?
Or are they audience-directed?
Is it really worship or just entertainment disguised as worship?
4.
Are there opportunities to dig deeper into God’s Word?
Are there men’s, women’s and youth Bible studies during the week that
give us a comprehensive understanding of the most amazing 66 books on the face
of the earth?
5.
Are there opportunities for service?
Are there ways God can use me and/or my family here to glorify Himself,
strengthen the brethren and reach the lost?
6.
Do the people here have a love for each other?
Will I be strengthened by the fellowship and encouraged unto
godliness? “Behold, how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133.1)
This is by no means an exhaustive
list but it’s a good start. Most
importantly, you need to be actively and fervently praying that God will give
you a right heart about this and then direct you. For example, you may be searching for a new church because you’re
mad at you’re old one! If you’re
leaving your present church because you didn’t get your way you need to
seriously examine whether God is pleased with your leaving.
Moving to a new church is serious
business. But if you’re searching for
noble reasons (relocation or doctrinal reasons for example) then God will
attend to your prayers in this matter so “that you may know how you ought to
conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3.15).
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