How do we choose a church?

Sometimes I have to laugh when I reflect on the path the Lord laid out for me. We’ve attended a wide variety of churches in our 17 years of marriage. We’ve driven 2 hours each way to be at a church with cutting edge worship. As missionaries, we spent almost 2 years attending a church with awesome programs and (ahem) interesting worship. Every song was sung slowly in a minor key, but for some absurd reason, the pianist ended each one with “shave and a hair cut, two biiiiiiiits” and a big roll down the keyboard.

When we returned to the states it was very important to us to find a congregation that believed as we do theologically. I remember the first time we visited what was to become our church. I cried and cried on the way home because it was both so good and so terrible and I just knew we would end up there. It was so good because the Word was being preached faithfully and the theology was right on the money. There was a commitment to quality children’s programming, too. It was so terrible because the worship was a 70-30 mix of (gasp) hymns and choruses. How could the Lord do this to me?

All I wanted was to be able to worship Him in a way that ministered to me, in a way that would meet my needs on Sunday morning! It was during that time that I began reading “Before the Face of God” by Michael Horton. The Lord convicted me through that book: Worship is not about God ministering to ME. It is about ME ministering to HIM. And if my heart is to worship God, I should be able to do that no matter what the style of music is. It is the words, after all, that express our praise and adoration to God, not the tune.

Fast forward six years. My husband’s job necessitated a move that would take us away from our now-beloved church. There was another church with very similar theology…a sister-denomination. But in practice, it was very different. Programs….what programs? The only “programs” were two Sunday services and a weekly prayer meeting on Wednesday nights. Oh, and did I mention that this church practices “family worship”, so (joy of joys) our kids were going to have to sit in the service with us. At the time, my boys were 8, 5, 3 and one on the way. The future seemed bleak: I would never hear a sermon in its entirety again. My convictions about worship were also put to the test. This new church had a 70-30 worship blend, too: 70 percent hymns, 30 percent psalter. What’s a psalter, anyway?

I actually said to my husband, “The Lord is taking us out of the Promised Land to make us wander in the wilderness….perhaps for 40 years!” Going somewhere with more programs and modern worship wasn’t even an option, though. We knew we had to go where the Word was being faithfully preached, and where our children would be taught to believe as we do.

How do we choose our churches? So many of us want programs for the children and worship that melts our hearts. But that is not what transforms us, is it? Programs do not transform. Even worship, although vital, does not transform us. If our hearts are so cold that we need a certain kind of worship to feel grateful for what God has done for us, then we need to be repenting of our hardness of heart. It is the WORD that transforms us. “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” (Romans 12:2)

As we choose our churches, I would submit to you that we need to be choosing them on the basis of theology and the preached Word. Is the theology biblical? Are you being convicted to repent, week in and week out? Is the preacher offering the Gospel for unbelievers, meat for the mature and milk for the babes every single week? This is what we need to be looking for in a church.

Fast forward one more time to today. The baby I carried then sat on my lap today. While the pastor was praying Little C stroked my hair and kissed my cheeks and whispered sweet nothings in my ear. Was it a distraction? Yes. Did I mind it? Not one bit. The Lord feeds me even in the midst of the distractions, and my little ones are being fed, too. We sang the hymns and psalms together with gusto, and it was a blessing to join in with little boy voices on the refrain. “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise” (Psalm 8:2).

And best of all, I was convicted AGAIN, like I am every Sunday, by the preached Word.