Church Hunting Commiseration

Dear Pyg,

I don't know why you gotta be so racist against Oompa Loompas.

But in all seriousness, I feel your pain in the church hunt. This is one of the most trying aspects of a move - cuts deepest in the heart. I feel like our most recent church hunt worked out better than ever for us.

There are plenty of criteria one can use to choose a church: the preaching, the programs, the population size, the praise music, the other things that start with "P." (hmmm . . . you could also include permissiveness, predestined status, political agendas . . . what else you got?) Once upon a time, I was a big bad high schooler and I was pretty much the world's leading expert on judging churches by all of these rubrics. I was so good at judging them, that in fact, not a single church in my hometown could earn my allegiance. I grew up in a city that holds 4 of the 10 largest churches in the country, all in one city folks. The yellow pages has over 3,100 churches listed. Pretty superior, was I not? ;) Since no one church could earn my loyalty, I went to 15 christian events each week across different faith communities to piece together a spiritual experience that could satisfy my grand spiritual appetite.

Please tell me my sarcasm is coming through clearly enough here. I was ridiculous. God convicted me hardcore of my ridiculosity [word? word!] in college, and it still took me years to repent, heal, course correct.

When we moved to Berkeley, my conviction was put under pressure as there was a lot of nonsense calling itself church that I could judge. But God put Bart and Katie Garrett in our path and we got swept up in the Christ Church East Bay church plant and kind of didn't have a choice but to dig in whole hog. When we moved to Maine, we found ourselves in one of the nation's [I feel like depending on the stats you use, different pastors boast this claim] most un-churched regions. There just were not many options to choose from. After church hunting for awhile, I was feeling discouraged and starting to give up hope, until Manny did one more search online and suggested we visit North Harbor.

After our first visit, I was underwhelmed. I was underwhelmed by the preaching, the praise music, and welcome we received was about as warm as I was warned to expect in the frigid north (an extra hard hit for a Texan). BUT, something in my gut, I call Him the Holy Spirit, told me, "these are people you could do life and grow with." And so after a few more attempts, we decided we could stand to settle on the preaching/music/hospitality fronts and commit ourselves to the people. And it instantly paid off.

Except it didn't. It took months, maybe a year, before I started to feel like I was connecting with the people of the church. The church had organized dinners for 6, random mix ups of dinner parties that allowed people to get to know each other better. And over the dinner tables of John Schanck, and Ray and Hannah Whitney, while there wasn't anything profound or dramatic that transpired, there was that subtle, simple sense that we were welcome and there was something special about these people. And that simple sense has continued to grow in truth the more I get to know those folks and the rest of the crew at our church. I believe Church is about humans growing together towards Christ. That growth requires commitment on the front end, which is super hard when you've got your critical thinking hat on trying to decide where to commit. But instead of anything you see upfront, my advice is to look around you. Embrace the Awkward, as I always tell folks at our church. Find out if the people who attend are growing in Christ, bearing fruit.

May you find a great place for your family to grow!

Love Your Roommate for Life,
zoe faith  

A Church Hunting Lament

We moved to Murrieta in September and have enjoyed it so far, but to find more community - and, you know, because the Bible recommends it to grow in knowledge of Christ and spur each other on and all that good stuff - we need to find a church here. I loathe this process*. It makes me hypercritical, and that makes me feel like a judgmental jerk. We've visited four churches and countless church websites, and my complaints have spanned from mere preferences (too big or too small or too far from home or too dark inside) to valid concerns (the songs are more about me and how God makes me feel than they are about God and worshiping who He is). We didn't visit one church because the pastor was too spray tanned in his website picture, and I didn't see how I could trust an Oompa Loompa's Biblical teaching.

It hasn't been all bad though. We've found churches that excel at welcoming visitors, churches with beautiful music that glorifies God, churches with sound Biblical teaching from pastors who are not orange. We have several solid options, and we're leaning strongly toward one, but it's not as easy a decision as it was in Orange County. The first time Jeff and I attended there, we looked at each other afterward and one of us said this is it and the other said yup with zero hesitation.

Our church in Orange County has a sweet mix of professional musicians who consistently choose songs that point to God, a pastor who speaks to us in a regular voice and goes the exegetical route with his teaching so we always are in the Bible, a nice community, and a sanctuary with tons of natural light. And it's called Grace Fellowship Church, not something like Cemented in Hiz Luv (I should note that I made up two additional ridiculous, trendy-sounding names, but then I Googled it and discovered they were in fact real church names so I omitted them). 

They say you don't get to choose your family, but that's not totally true. You get to choose your church family. I think that's the pressure here. What do you look for in a church? How did you choose your church? 




*Yo. I understand and appreciate that we live in a country where we are free to worship God and some people do not have that luxury and I should just be grateful and not overthink this decision. But I live here and I'm an imperfect human, so deal.