How To Choose A Church

 [photo: erin dunigan]

I have been serving congregations in San Francisco for about 20 years and have a pretty good grasp on the Christian church landscape of San Francisco. One of the wonderful aspects of San Francisco's diversity is the breadth of church manifestations that exists here: conservative to liberal, high church to house church, young and hip to intergenerational to down right old ... we have it all. Whether one is simply curious about Christianity or has been steeped in church culture for a lifetime ... it is difficult to find somewhere without getting a little overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Whenever folks come to visit the church I serve, I always encourage them to do a little "church shopping" during this time of discernment. Now I know some folks, if you are still reading, are rolling their eyes, "Great, just another marketing-lingo using pastor, jerk!" ... but why not put the same kind of intentionality into searching for your spiritual home as you do in looking for someone to care for your children, finding a good doctor or even discovering a great restaurant? Of course you will not be paying for services rendered, but you certainly want to make sure that you find a good fit.

So let me offer some advice, if you are looking for a church home here or anywhere else. I am sure there are lots of lists out there, but here are a few things I would suggest.

Five helpful tips to keep in mind

1. Visit at least three times in a row or at least pretty close together.   While every church should strive for consistency, one Sunday may or may not be reflective of the community as a whole.
2. Visit the church's website and read blogs if there are any, click through multiple layers so you get a sense of the culture of the community.  If the pastor or others in the church blog, twitter, etc. read and follow them.
3. Find out what others are saying about the church by using review sites like Yelp and others. Ask friends or ask people who are there, "Why do you come to _______?"
4. Check your unhealthy cynicism -  (healthy cynicism is called snark and is fun)  - and assumptions at the door.  If you are sure you won't like it even before you go, odds are you won't.   Open yourself up to the possibilities God may have in store for you ... even in a place that on the outside might not seem like a good fit.
5. When you visit, go ahead and engage folks ... ask questions, take them up on offers for conversation and observe how folks treat and engage with one another.

Five Filters to install

1. No church is perfect, so discern your non-negotiables in terms of style, size, feel, theology, etc.  Don't be totally tied to them, but at least recognize what you think you may want.
2. Churches are, at our best, a gathering of misfits trying to figure this whole life thing out, so do not judge the church based on a single interaction with a single person, you are probably one as well.
3. Churches cannot be all things for all people, so don't please don't expect them to be.
4. Summer is a bad time to visit churches, shop when there will be some consistency of leadership and attendance.
5. Sometimes you will just know when it is a good fit.  Trust your gut and the vibe you pick up.

Number one thing for me if I were choosing a church

A church should care more about your spiritual health rather than your attendance at their particular church. If you get a whiff of the idea that you are an offering unit, membership number or potential worker bee, run, run as fast as you can and move on to the next place.

There are so many wonderfully loving, justice seeking and faithful congregations here in San Francisco, that this time of searching can be really quite liberating.  Feel free to ask questions here if you want and/or lift up any of your congregations.

This post has been edited from its original posting on www.reyes-chow.com.

 

 

 

Follow Bruce Reyes-Chow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/breyeschow

Comments

[just me3461]

02:40 AM on 03/17/2011

The number one thing to look for in a church is TRUTH. The person in a teaching position should teach exactly as it has been taught. God's word is everlasting and will not change. The only way to know if you are being taught according to His word is to READ THE BIBLE YOURSELF.

Titus 1:6-9 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Here are some characteristics of a good church: strong preaching against sin; teaching repentance; an emphasis on both old and new testament; an emphasis on the world to come as opposed to this world; and an emphasis on the Bible. It is recommend you compare everything to the Bible—preferably the King James Version.

[notwaff]

11:29 PM on 03/14/2011

hmmm, I was looking for an application of God's Word in choosing a house of worship

How about some qualities to find (and should not find) ...

Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.

Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don’t participate in the things these people do. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.

(from Ephesians 5)

[libwingoflibwing]

11:04 PM on 03/14/2011

"And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in" Bono, "Acrobat"

The unspoken line is, "Unfortunately there isn't one."

[libwingoflibwing]

11:22 PM on 03/14/2011

part 1.

So here's my short list of what I need for there to be a church I could receive in:

1) Beautiful language of poetry in the liturgy, especially use of ancient liturgy, but updated so it has inclusive language for both the Divine and humanity.

2) Singing of the great hymns from people like Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts, but updated so they have inclusive language for both the Divine and humanity, that create an intellectual and artistic sense of worship.

3) Singing of meditative, repetitive worship choruses that create an emotional, trancelike sense of worship, but these must not have an exclusivist Theology, a focus on our experience of salvation, or use of exclusive male language for the Divine and humanity.

4) Breaking out of the verbal world in worship into the fully sensual with bells, candles, incense, movement, flowers, and especially lots of water in baptism, lots of oil in anointing, and lots of wine/juice and bread in communion.

5) Weekly eucharistic celebration.

(So far not so hard to find, but...)

6) Intelligent, liberal preaching that has a focus on social justice, existential connection and is not afraid of tackling the difficult issues of having a scripture that is full of stuff that NOBODY believes today like demon possession or talking animals, so it grapples with the paradox of the text being in some sense a witness and yet can't be the literal Word of God.

continued

[libwingoflibwing]

11:39 PM on 03/14/2011

part 2.

7) Preaching that is not only intelligent but is inspiring and creates an artistic space where emotion and thought, faith and doubt, hope and dread, and being and non-being meet and become in some kerygmatic moment a place where the Divine and the human touch.

(now much more difficult to find)

8) Totally given to feminist principal including sometimes using feminine language for the Divine. For human issues totally committed to radical feminist egalitarianism, including in marriage, and is pro-choice.

9) Totally given to inclusion of all, including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender folk, at all levels including rights, marriage and ministry.

(Oh no, now gets extremely small, especially if still want 1-7)

10) A focus on creativity as spirituality and the value of beauty in word and place. An awareness that the Divine is not separate from nature and thus a deep ecological aspect to its spiritual life.

11) Deep ecumenicism that embraces all people of faith and non-faith as brothers and sisters and no fear in learning and being influenced be these people of other faiths or non-faith.

12) Radical call to working for peace and social justice for the marginalized to the point of civil disobedience resistance.

(Sounds like a Unitarian-Universalists fellowship might work except for 1, 4 & 5.)

continued

[Turtles All The Way Down]

09:23 PM on 03/14/2011

This reminds me of the time in the early 1970s, when my then girlfriend and I, as young adults, worshipped at a different church every Sunday until we had covered all the churches in our town. It was an enlightening experience, and one which sowed the seed of my atheism.

[breyeschow]

07:17 AM on 03/15/2011

Sometimes I think getting to see even what one does NOT want is often just as important. Thanks for sharing.

[respectfully yours]

03:28 AM on 03/16/2011

HAHAHAHHAHAHa. that ending was quite ironic and extremely funny. thank you

[Kerry Greenhill]

06:04 PM on 03/14/2011

Thoughtful post. As a pastor myself, I think it comes down to what you said about "Churches cannot be all things for all people." At best, each congregation is a part of the Body of Christ, building God's kin'dom according to its unique gifts and identity. Some people will thrive in a congregation that would mean spiritual death to other people. Of course, it is human nature to seek out the "solace of like-minde­d folks," so we must challenge ourselves and our churches to figure out how to make sure we are always open to the Other, whatever or whoever that looks like in our setting.

[HotSpringsSteve]

05:21 PM on 03/14/2011

There is a story in the old testament about a time when the ark was being carried on a cart. The cart hit a hole, A man reached to steady the ark and was killed. The moral of the story was that while it might have been ok for people who did not know better to place it on a cart, it was not ok for Israel to do it. The bottom line is, When you are looking for a church, walk up and put your ear to the door and listen. If you hear saws and hammers, and cart building going on. Run away. Someone is going to get hurt in there. Paul used the word ecclesia to define the church. He did so because everyone knew the word, and what it meant, and all the implications that went with the word. It meant 'called to the assembly ' . It was the Greek senate. The senate was made of all the full citizens of the city and was the legislative body of the state. All were equals there. The people Paul was writing to knew what it was, and how it worked. It was the model for how the church was to function. Today, you would swear he had used the word for classroom or theater as that is what they all more closely resemble. That is the beginning of what to look for and to look out for in a 'church'. http://steve-ruyle.blogspot.com

[Turtles All The Way Down]

09:18 PM on 03/14/2011

"All were equals there" Except for women. And slaves.

[HotSpringsSteve]

04:30 AM on 03/15/2011

Not true. Women did not get their depricated status until later when the patriarchs decided it must be so. Women were co-workers with Paul and honored in the early church. As for slaves, there were alot of them there. The church was not made of the wealthy but the poor.

[ninetailedfox]

12:00 PM on 03/14/2011

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Thomas Paine

I love Thomas Paine's quotes.

[libwingoflibwing]

11:06 PM on 03/14/2011

Doesn't make much sense, does it, that Glenn Beck thinks Thomas Paine is a good make believe spokesman for the Tea Party.

I think if Glenn Beck met the real Thom Paine, Beck would run away screaming like hell.

[Yahasapah Tzabah]

11:46 AM on 03/14/2011

The church was not started by the HEAVEN FATHER;He told us to worship in the temple which is the body because the heart(mind) is where true change takes place.Rome started the church for the purpose of controlling your spiritual intake to insure rome stayed in power!It was started on ironically enough_Dec.25

[califson]

11:35 AM on 03/14/2011

A very good article and well stated. I live in the South East and on a vist to California a few years ago, I found a wonderful church by accident in Fontana. It was full of love and welcome for a stranger who was very different from those in attendance. THe pastor called on me to close the service in prayer, and that is somehting I shall never forget.

[Qootsa]

11:21 AM on 03/14/2011

Your list is quite appropriate. I would add that you include a personal filter that applies to you individually. I knew I would find the right church when I found one that did not pass the plate or pray over money.

[Indigo1941]

10:29 AM on 03/14/2011

Shopping for a church. Well, I guess so, but that suggests to me some very odd expectations out of church like marketing to a specific demographic (rich like me, poor like me, smug like me, casutic like me, whatever like me) that doesn't exactly resonate with spiritual issues like, say, worship of the gods or seeking spiritual understanding or the solice of like-minded folks or . . . I don't know. That's really weird. The idea resonates to me like a form of spiritual bankruptcy that suggests that really, there is no god and going to church just social event, a substitute for staying home and watching Sunday morning TV political discussions. Omigaud! You know, that would be a good reason to go to church . . . or out for breakfast.

[ninetailedfox]

12:02 PM on 03/14/2011

Agreed. Church is a social construct, but to me, knowing what I know, its a good way to make friends that arent really friends, or as the slang term these days "frenemies"

[breyeschow]

05:42 PM on 03/14/2011

I can very much understand your point. I guess my point is also that these gatherings of people are not perfect or should be seen as places of consumptions, but rather a place where one can grow spiritually, which for some is done through an experience of church.

[Turtles All The Way Down]

11:27 PM on 03/14/2011

What, exactly, does it mean to "grow spiritually"?