What Is the Right Church For You?

5 Questions to Help You Decide

Looking for a new church to attend can be an uncomfortable affair. As a pastor, I rarely get an opportunity to test-drive other churches. Our church recently took a short break while we began preparing to relocate. For practical reasons we began meeting on Saturdays, so my wife and I had the chance to experience searching for a church to attend. We found it very helpful in deciding what our church will be like as we had some good experiences and some, not so good. There will be other factors for you to consider in your search, but I hope the following 5 questions may be immensely useful.

1. Did you feel welcome?

Did you experience the church as seeming cliquish, or was there potential to get comfortable? I say potential here because it’s rather unusual to feel very comfortable on your first visit. If you like it well enough, you should go a second and third time. Here’s another way to frame this question — Did people seem to want you there or did they seem indifferent?

2. Was it relevant?

As a long-time Christian, the first area of relevance to check out is whether or not they use the Bible as the basis for their teaching. Believe it or not, there are churches where there is not a single reference given from the Bible. The Bible is incredibly relevant on big issues in your life. This leads to the next question of relevance. Was it helpful?

3. Did you find it “moving”?

Did the worship and the teaching help move you toward God? Was it engaging? Inspirational? If not, even though it may be comfortable, you face the very real danger of getting into a religious rut, simply going through religious motions, rather than experiencing a life-altering dynamic interaction with God.

4. Would attending that church help you to better know and follow Christ?

This is the million dollar question. You need to be in an environment where you will grow in your faith, coming to know God’s ways and His work in and around you. It’s one thing to simply “do the church thing”. It’s something entirely different to have a serious life-impacting faith in God.

Similar Helpful Articles

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/01/05/it-takes-all-kinds-of-churches/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25123032/Why-Are-There-Different-Types-of-Christians-Article