What to Look for in a New Church
Introduction
Multiple times throughout someone’s life, they will be in a position to look for a new church. There are several reasons as to why someone would need to change churches and none of them are necessarily wrong in and of themselves—e.g., if you move to a new area, it’s better for you to find a church in your new area, if you realize that there are leadership issues in your previous church that haven’t resolved, it’s better for you to find a new church with healthier leadership, or if you realize that your own convictions have changed concerning core values or specific doctrinal ideas, it’s better for you to find a church that aligns more with what you actually believe. With that said, it is important as you start your search for a new church to assess why you’re searching. If you’re searching because you simply don’t like someone at your previous church or you don’t like that you’ve been convicted of sin, or something along those lines, you really ought to go back and make things right before you start attending a different church. It is one thing to need a new church because of a move, sin within the leadership, or convictional change; but it is an entirely different issue to look for a new church because of your own sin, conviction for that sin, or dislike of a person at your previous church.
If, when you consider your own heart, you realize that you’re looking for a new church for a solid reason (or more likely, multiple reasons), then this blog is for you. I’ve had the privilege of attending several churches throughout my life—only once did I leave the church for issues within that church. Every other instance, I either moved or I took a call to pastor another church. With that said, in the instances that I’ve had to look for a new church, these are the things that I look for (which, truthfully, is a lot easier now than before since most churches have websites that they post all this information on). This will be divided by non-negotiable needs and negotiable wants:
Non-Negotiable Needs
These are issues that if they’re incorrectly done within a church have very real and detrimental effects on the whole church. In fact, many of these will influence every aspect of the church, which will be explained in each section. As I search for churches to partner with or work with, if these issues aren’t correct, I often won’t partner or work with them.
Gospel Clarity
One of the biggest issues in the modern American church is a simple lack of Gospel clarity. For instance, if you listen to Christian radio regularly, you’ll notice that whenever they’re recounting stories of their evangelistic efforts, they basically equate any conversation in which they talk about spiritual things as a moment of Gospel proclamation (e.g., they told someone what Jesus had done in their own life, thus, they presented the Gospel). The issue is that the Gospel is more than just a spiritual conversation, it’s a conversation that includes some key details: (1) that God created all things with purpose, (2) that mankind sinned against Him, (3) as a result, humanity can no longer dwell with God, (4) to dwell with God, someone needs to reconcile man with God, (5) that reconciliation was accomplished by Jesus on the cross, (6) those who repent and believe partake in that reconciliation and are redeemed as God’s people, and (7) one day, all things will be consummated in the new heaven and the new earth. Clearly, this is more than just telling people your own testimony.
Without Gospel clarity, there is no salvation as the Gospel is the means through which Jesus saves (Rom 1:16). If a local church gets this wrong, it’s not actually a biblical church and ought to be avoided. In addition, I would tie in the concepts of the five solas pertaining to the Gospel. That salvation is through faith alone in Jesus alone by His grace alone according to His Word alone and for the glory of God alone. Anything less or more than this isn’t biblical Christianity, which is why Gospel clarity is so high on this list.
Now practically, a church may articulate the Gospel clearly on their website or Facebook page, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re clear with the Gospel. For instance, a church may clearly articulate the Gospel until they start preaching and teaching. On paper, they might be Gospel-centered churches, but in practice, they might be therapeutic moralistic deists (i.e., they might believe the whole point is to make people moral and good rather than to help people participate in the Gospel). Unfortunately, without actually listening to their sermons and teachings, there really is no way to determine how Gospel-centered they really are. My recommendation is to listen to or watch several sermons—if you find that the sermons are primarily lists of things to do with little connection to the Gospel itself, there’s probably a lack of Gospel clarity.
High View of Scripture
Second, any church that’s worth being a part of will have a significantly high view of Scripture. What I mean by this is that they recognize that Scripture is God’s Word and they believe it to be sufficient enough to dictate everything that they believe and do—both in the local church gathering, but also in the daily life of the Christian. These are churches that understand 2 Tim 3:16-17 and thus, mold their beliefs and practices around the Word breathed out by God. This issue is a little harder to discern unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. Probably the easiest way to discern if a church has a high view of Scripture is to ask two questions: (1) what role does the Bible play in an average church service and (2) how does the preacher/teacher use God’s Word in His preaching and teaching?
For question one, what role does the Bible play in an average service, just look at how often Scripture is used throughout it. Is Scripture something that’s relegated to only a few minutes every Sunday or is Scripture exuding from every part of the service? Is Scripture begrudgingly used or is it delighted in as it is read, sang, and proclaimed each Sunday? If Scripture is relegated to only small portions of the worship service, it reveals a church that doesn’t take God’s Word seriously. If Scripture exudes from every part of the service, it often reveals a much higher view of Scripture. For question two, how does the preacher/teacher use God’s Word, consider how the person preaches and teaches. Often what’s seen in many churches are sermons and lessons which use Scripture as a launchpad to discuss what the preacher actually wants to discuss—this is a really low view of Scripture (e.g., there’s a difference between using Ephesians as a list of how people should treat each other and understanding Ephesians as what it means to live in union with Jesus Christ together; or, there’s a difference between putting yourself in the shoes of David and understanding what the David vs. Goliath account means in light of redemptive history). If the preacher/teacher just uses Scripture as a launchpad or uses it just to prove his own point without actually bothering to exegete and exposit the text’s original meaning and purpose, they have a rather low view of Scripture. In addition, be careful to make sure that the church actually highlights the whole council of God’s Word (i.e., they don’t just preach and teach from one part of the Bible). Pastors need to preach and teach the whole council of God, which requires them knowing the whole council of God and regularly focusing on the overarching meta narrative of Scripture.
Practically, this is easier to see than what it might seem. You can determine whether a church has a high or low view of Scripture simply by watching their services—do they delight in Scripture or not? Does the preacher preach expositionally (i.e., exposing the original meaning of the text) or does he just use it however he sees fit? Just be careful, because there are some who claim to be expositional who actually aren’t expositional—to determine whether they are, you also need to be in the Word of God regularly. In addition, consider how the church views sufficiency—do they think that the Bible alone is sufficient for all things or do they feel the need to integrate other beliefs, other ideas, and other sources to it? Someone with a high view of Scripture wouldn’t feel the need to integrate other beliefs.
Sound Doctrine
This section could very easily take several dozens of pages, but I think the easiest way to add to what has previously been stated—Gospel clarity and a high view of Scripture helps in determining what sound doctrine is. If something contradicts the Gospel as given by Jesus through the apostles, it isn’t sound. If something contradicts Scripture, it isn’t sound. With that said, one way to determine whether doctrine is sound is to consider three questions: (1) what is the source of the doctrine, (2) what is the object of the doctrine, and (3) what is the telos or end of the doctrine?[1] Sound doctrine will answer all three questions with God. God gives sound doctrine through His Word, God and mankind’s relationship with God is the primary purpose of doctrine, and the telos of sound doctrine is union with the resurrected Christ, which results in the beatific vision (seeing God face to face). So, there’s an aspect in determining whether doctrine is sound in which you can simply ask these questions.
In addition, I typically recommend that people get very familiar with historical creeds and confessions. In many churches today (particularly baptist, non-denominational, and holiness movement churches (i.e., Churches of Christ, Church of the Nazarene, etc.)), there is an aversion to the historical creeds and confessions. You may have heard someone say that they “just believe the Bible” or that they “have no creed but the Bible.” The issue is that this claim brings up several other questions: (1) how do you read the Bible, (2) what hermeneutical method do you use to interpret the Bible, (3) what theological framework are you bringing to the table, and (4) what do you do when someone disagrees with your interpretation of the Bible?[2] Historical creeds and confessions help to answer those questions by providing guidelines to biblical interpretation and theological frameworks (i.e., they act like guide rails on roads to prevent accidental heresy or false teaching).
Practically, get familiar with the ecumenical creeds (Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, and the Chalcedonian Creed)—all truly Christian churches will agree with the statements in these creeds (even if they don’t use the creeds).[3] In addition, start reading confessions of faith and learn to pick up on key words (e.g., if you see terms like dispensations or the church age, you’re probably looking at a church that’s dispensational even if they don’t say that they are; if you see terms like covenantal or continuity, you’re probably looking at a church that’s influenced by Reformed theology (even if they’re not fully Reformed)). For myself, since I affirm Reformed theology, it’s actually rather easy to find churches that I’d mostly agree with—most consistently Reformed churches are pretty similar in how they preach, teach, and do things as a church. So, typically, I just look to make sure that the church not only affirms a Reformed confession, but actually consistently acts in light of their confession. For those who aren’t Reformed, this section gets a little trickier because most churches outside of Reformed circles usually write their own confessions (though they usually just call them Statements of Faith). So, with that in mind, let me encourage you with a few bits of advice concerning Statements of Faith—(1) make sure essentials are clear (e.g., if they don’t believe in Jesus’ divinity, you shouldn’t attend, if their statement about the Trinity is vague, reconsider, if they don’t have a statement about salvation, be careful), (2) be wary of churches that have vague and short statements of faith (i.e., the Christian faith includes a lot of beliefs that encompass all of life—if they summarize their entire faith in ten sentences, they either (a) don’t have a strong grasp of all of Christianity or (b) are trying to widen the tent to be as big as possible for the most amount of people)), (3) be careful with churches that are very specific about non-essentials (e.g., if the Statement of Faith has a very firm stance on translations or even eschatology), and (4) don’t be afraid to ask questions if something in their doctrinal statement doesn’t make sense or if it doesn’t address something—any pastor worth his salt will lovingly explain the details of their beliefs to you.[4]
Biblical Church Discipline
This might sound unusual for churchgoers that attend low-commitment type churches (i.e., churches that don’t have a lot of expectations for their members), but part of a healthy church is the ability and willingness to discipline people for persistent and unrepentant sin. In fact, the oft quoted, but notoriously misunderstood verse in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (ESV) is actually a passage about church discipline spoken by Jesus. The rest of the passage actually says this:
Now if your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that on the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be confirmed. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, he is to be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.[5]
For a church to refuse church discipline done rightly is for a church to reject what Jesus has taught. Church discipline done right has multiple purposes: (1) it calls the disciplined believer to repentance, (2) it protects the local church from sin, and (3) it models to the church how they should respond to unrepentant sin and repentant sin. If a church doesn’t practice church discipline, it isn’t a healthy church.
Practically, what this means is that you need to keep an eye on how the church treats issues of sin—are they covered up, are they ignored, etc.? In addition, you’ll need to check to make sure that when true, genuine repentance does happen, the church welcomes that individual back into the fellowship of the church. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual welcomed back will return to everything just as it was before, but it does mean that any prohibition set against that person isn’t done maliciously, but rather to protect that individual from falling into that sin again and to protect the church (particularly if the individual was public facing or if the sin was particularly egregious). A church that doesn’t discipline isn’t healthy, but a church that doesn’t welcome back repentant believers also isn’t healthy.
Qualified Plurality of Elders
Throughout the New Testament (NT), when dealing with church leadership, multiple elders lead a local church. There isn’t any instance in the NT in which a singular elder leads or any instance in which no elder leads. So, just from a biblical theological standpoint, a church with only one actual elder isn’t sustainable and is a risk.[6] With this said, there are plenty of churches that are claiming to have a plurality of elders, but don’t actually act like they have plurality of elders (e.g., you might have multiple elders but when it actually comes down to it, there’s one elder who has final say and makes the majority of the decisions). In a true plurality of elders, every elder has equal authority even if not every elder preaches and teaches regularly (i.e., everyone has equal say and equal authority). This prevents a singular elder from exercising undue authority over the church and it allows all the strengths from the differing elders to be utilized properly (i.e., no single person is sufficient to lead a church, but multiple qualified elders can lead a church properly).
Some of this takes time to discern because the inner-workings of an elder board or session often aren’t public. However, over time, these issues tend to reveal themselves—does the primary preaching pastor seem to be making all the decisions? Are the other elders passive in their participation in the church? When decisions are made, is it clear that it was a decision between equals or a decision in which the others deferred to the one?
Practically, what this means is that churches without a plurality of elders are often just out of the question if you’re looking for a well-rounded church that obeys Scripture. The exceptions would be during transitions or during church plants. With that said, from the perspective of someone looking for a church, there’s very little that a congregant or regular visitor could do to make the church accept a plurality of elder polity—that’s really a decision that’s made from the leadership itself.
Genuine/Authentic Worship
Occasionally, you will find a church that meets all of the above requirements—right doctrine, a high view of Scripture, a plurality of elders, and Gospel clarity—however, their worship of the Lord is lackluster. Let me clarify, that I do not mean that their worship of the Lord is lackluster in the sense that it isn’t high-energy or it isn’t emotionally manipulative. What I mean by lackluster is that when it comes to worshipping the Lord, they don’t actually mean it—they’re just going through the motions with very little desire to actually delight in the Lord. Usually, it’s rather easy to determine whether a church is like this just by visiting a few services. If, when you visit, you notice that the majority of people there just mentally aren’t there (e.g., they’re zoned out, they aren’t tracking with what’s going on, they aren’t participating in the ordinary means of grace, or they aren’t participating in the singing), those are all red flags. Of course, there will occasionally be times when people are zoned out, but that shouldn’t be a weekly occurrence from the majority of the congregation.
In addition, even in church services that are more serious or somber, there is a joy that comes from just being with the people of the Lord. If it seems as if the congregation couldn’t care less about their weekly gathering, they don’t really enjoy being with each other, or they’re regularly quick to just leave, there’s a lack of authenticity that will affect whether the church itself authentically worships.
Practically, unfortunately, the only way to determine this is to just attend multiple services. Let me encourage you to not base your opinion concerning this issue on one visit as one visit can be deceptive (e.g., you might attend a service in which multiple things just go wrong or you might attend a singular service that happens to be high-energy). To determine this, you really need to spend at least a month or two regularly attending that congregation’s gatherings.
Negotiable Wants
These are issues that while I might have specific opinions and desires concerning them, they wouldn’t necessarily stop me from visiting, attending, or even partnering with or working with churches that differ.
Doctrinal Distinctives
Now, let me clarify, what I mean by doctrinal distinctives in this section doesn’t pertain to essentials of the Christian faith. These are issues that aren’t necessarily essential—e.g., I have preached at churches that differ from me concerning issues of predestination and freewill, I’ve preached at churches that differ on what they believe concerning the Lord’s Supper (i.e., whether the elements are purely symbolic or if they believe in spiritual presence during the ordinances), and I regularly partner with presbyterian churches (despite our differences concerning baptism). Knowing what is essential and what isn’t is vitally important if you’re going to be a Christian that works with Christians from other traditions; and while I would like to find a church that agrees with me on all the non-essentials, the reality is that if you look hard enough, you will always find something you disagree with at any church that you attend.[7]
Personally, I would have a hard time staying longterm at a church that wasn’t Reformed in its theology because Reformed theology includes Covenant Theology (CT) and CT influences how you interpret Scripture, how you view the overarching storyline of the Bible, what you do with Israel and the church, and various other issues. However, I wouldn’t have an issue attending longterm at a conservative presbyterian church (e.g., the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), or the Heritage Reformed Congregations) because the primary differences don’t affect as much—they’re primarily that of church government and baptism. I, however, wouldn’t have an issue visiting or even preaching at many churches that aren’t Reformed as long as they hold to the essentials of the Christian faith and I would stay longterm, if there were absolutely no other options.
Practically, what this means is that you need to start delineating between needs and wants in a local church. You need to learn the essentials so that when you do search for a church, you’re not distracted by the non-essentials. When you find multiple churches that are right on the essentials, then you can start looking at the non-essentials.
Stylistic Issues
I have a preference for churches that are simple—I’m a firm believer in the Regulative Principle of worship (that we ought to only do what is explicitly commanded in Scripture during our public worship gatherings). With that said, if I have options (i.e., there are multiple churches that are theologically correct, biblically accurate, led by qualified elders, and meet my doctrinal distinctives), I will always prefer the church that is stylistically simple. However, this doesn’t mean that churches that are stylistically different are necessarily wrong or unbiblical. In fact, I have friends who pastor churches that are vastly stylistically different than my own preferences and yet, I know that they are proclaiming the Gospel and preaching the whole counsel of God accurately and so, I continue to pray for them and support them.
What I mean by stylistically deals with multiple ideas broken down into categories (note that this isn’t comprehensive):
The Worship Gathering itself:
the music (whether they use hymns, contemporary songs, or are exclusively using psalms),
instrumentation (piano/organ, full band, acoustic, etc.),
the service structure (whether it’s liturgical or more free-form),
and amount of congregational participation (responsive readings, extended prayer, recitation, etc.).
Preaching Style (note that this doesn’t refer to topical, narrative, or mixed preaching. I believe all sermons need to be expositional even if the preacher exposits in a topical, narrative, or mixed fashion. If the preacher doesn’t proclaim what any given text says, he isn’t actually preaching the Bible):
tone (is he more academic, conversational, exhortative, pastoral, etc.),
length (I actually prefer longer sermons because it’s rather hard to exposit a text of Scripture in under 30 minutes, but that’s a different discussion),
depth (this one is a bit harder to put just under non-essentials because it involves doctrine—if all sermons preached are shallow, then no true spiritual growth will occur),
and delivery.
Aesthetic and Atmosphere:
building/setting (is the church meeting in a traditional building vs. a modern auditorium, etc.),
dress expectations (formal, business casual, casual, etc.),
tone of gatherings (are they more solemn and reverent vs. relaxed),
and lighting and decor (is it bright and welcoming vs. subdued and contemplative)?
Again, this list isn’t comprehensive and really, every item on the list is negotiable because they don’t necessarily imply a healthy church. With that said, often the stylistic tendencies of a church are driven by their doctrine (i.e., what they believe influences what they do). And so, practically, you’ll need to learn what the differences in practice mean about their beliefs (e.g., even church architecture reveals a lot about the church itself) and you’ll need to be comfortable with asking church leadership why they do things the way that they do them. My advice is to avoid churches that haven’t thought out why they do things a certain way and avoid churches that have unbiblical reasons for doing the things that they do.
Programming
Programming is often elevated to a much higher level than what it ought to be when people consider new churches. It is common for people to base the decision to attend a church purely based on what the church offers (in particular, I see this with parents who chose a church because of that church’s apparently thriving children’s ministry (even if the doctrine is off)). Programming does matter to an extent, but it definitely isn’t the most important part of a church and to choose a church based just on programming is awfully short-sighted. The reality is that programming doesn’t matter if you aren’t discipling people well and you aren’t helping people to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. In fact, I would argue that programming can sometimes harm people in unexpected ways (e.g., there are plenty of people that attend all of a church’s programming and think that they’re believers because they do so, when in reality they’ve never actually repented and believed or consider how attending all the programming in the church can prevent people from having enough time to evangelize and disciple others). The reality is that often when a church front loads their congregation with programs, they end up turning the church into a consumer product rather than a church. Yes, programs can be helpful, but the programs shouldn’t take precedence over the church being the church nor should the programs ever give the impression to Christians that all they need to do is attend the church’s programs to be a good Christian.
Personally, I’m a fan of very limited programming for churches, in fact, I would argue that the majority of churches should have only 3-4 regular gatherings a week: a time for (1) corporate worship, (2) Christian education, (3) discipleship, and (4) corporate prayer. And how this looks really depends on that particular local church, but if a church isn’t making opportunities for their congregants to worship together, learn together, be discipled, and pray together, they aren’t really doing what a local church ought to do as an expression of the universal church. For myself, I would look for a church that offers programming like this:
Sundays
Sunday School (i.e., Christian Education) that might be age-segregated; however, I’m also fine with family-integrated Sunday School in the morning.
Family-integrated Corporate Worship (because I believe that the family should worship together) in the morning and maybe even in the evening (as it is the Lord’s Day).
Midweek
Sometime throughout the week I would expect a Bible Study & Prayer type of gathering in which the primary purpose for gathering is prayer itself.
Spread throughout the week, I would expect gatherings for discipleship in small groups or one-on-one.
Practically, what this means is that the programming of the local church should be rather low on your list of important things to consider when searching for a church. Programming isn’t unimportant, but it isn’t the most important. Don’t let programming distract you from the more important issues of Gospel clarity, a right view of Scripture, and right doctrine.
Conclusion
The reality is that choosing a new church is a time-consuming and difficult decision because church attendance influences every aspect of your life. As such, it is important to keep your focus while searching for a new church to the issues that are most important—right doctrine, a high view of Scripture, Gospel clarity, qualified leadership, and authentic worship. Everything else is negotiable and while they might seem important, to choose the negotiable while ignoring the non-negotiable will only ever result in harm. Of course, much more could be said, but is often easier said in-person than through a blog post. So, if you find yourself in a situation in which you are searching for a new church and want some help, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
[1] See Scott Swain, “What Is Sound Doctrine?” Ligonier Ministries, https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/what-sound-doctrine, January 26, 2017.
[2] In addition (let me say this as charitably as I can), the “no creed but the Bible” crowd should be honest with what they mean. What they really mean is that they only believe whatever it is that they personally interpret from Scripture—regardless of if it is contrary to historic Christianity or not.
[3] Though, be aware, that some churches may have issue with some of the wording in the creeds. For instance, the Apostles’ creed speaks of the holy, Catholic church, but it really just means the universal church. The Nicene creed talks about baptism as a necessity for salvation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you must be baptized to be saved (i.e., consider the meaning of baptism—a public proclamation of faith).
[4] Personally, I wouldn’t attend a church that didn’t have a robust statement of faith and my reasoning for this is rather simple—what a church believes affects everything about that church. If the church’s beliefs are vague, the church is susceptible to every wind of doctrine. If the church’s beliefs are explained and spelled out comprehensively, the church is less likely to be swayed by every wind of doctrine.
[5] Matthew 18:15-20; unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the New American Standard Bible (NASB) (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 2020).
[6] It is worth noting that in some denominations (e.g., the Presbyterian Church in America), a church with a singular elder isn’t actually considered a church—it’s a church plant until multiple elders are ordained.
[7] This is where theological triage comes into play. Issues that are first-tier are non-negotiable (e.g., Jesus’ deity, the virgin birth, the Trinity, etc.), issues that are second-tier are negotiable, but distinctive (e.g., baptism, church government, etc.), and issues that are third-tier are almost inconsequential in terms of eternity (e.g., the timing of the Second Coming, the age of the earth, etc.) First-tier issues are non-negotiable because they make you a Christian—you either believe them or you aren’t a Christian. Second-tier issues are negotiable because they make you a Christian of a certain tradition—you might be baptist or you might be presbyterian, etc. Third-tier issues are almost inconsequential because good Christians disagree and eternity isn’t at stake concerning these issues.
