20 Things I Learned Looking for a Church

Recently my wife and I spent several months visiting area churches looking for a place to call home. The process was interesting and eye-opening in both good and not-so-good ways. It was also refreshing and agonizing. I learned things about myself and I learned things about the church. Some things were reinforced from longtime observations, some were reminders of what I already knew, and some things I learned were new.  Mostly I was reminded that there is no perfect church because the church is made of a lot of imperfect people and if I ever joined a perfect church I would immediately ruin its perfection. Take the observations for what they are worth. Maybe they will help you look at your own church differently, but maybe not. Maybe it will just make you look at me differently.

1. Churches are pastor dependent and pastor driven even when they try not to be
2. As much as churches complain about the consumerist mentality of people, churches enable it to exist
3. Most churches still don’t know how to deal with visitors
4. If a church says they will contact you, they probably won’t, but if they do it will most likely be generic and impersonal
5. As much as churches want to be transparent, most don’t really know how to be
6. Even churches that want to be “different” still tend to do a lot of the same things as everyone else
7. Churches don’t talk about foreign missions
8. Churches barely talk about local missions
9. Churches might talk about their own mission, but it is mostly talk
10. There is no correlation between website quality and the quality of the church
11. Church websites are mostly useless, except for finding out worship times and addresses (but even then it can be hit or miss)
12. Doctrine and doctrinal statements are not as important as we often make them out to be
13. Music is the most important part of Sunday worship
14. You have an immediate “in” if you are musically talented
15. No matter how confident they look on the outside every pastor has struggles
16. You don’t get to know a church after just a couple of visits, in fact you may not really know a church until you have been there for a several months
17. Just because a church isn’t my “style” doesn’t mean it isn’t good or effective
18. Despite its flaws, the church is what we have, and it is what God uses
19. For every flaw I see in the church, I am part of the problem and part of the solution
20. Not having a church to call home sucks