When you're searching for a church

or are disenchanted with what you have

Maybe you attend a tiny house church. Maybe you go to a large church. Maybe you haven’t been to church in a few years and you aren’t ready to go back. Maybe you are looking for a church. Church is a hard, complex thing here in America.¹ I hope you feel welcome here regardless of your church status, but today we’re going to talk about church. 

I work at a bigger church. Not a megachurch. Not even the biggest church in our city. But a bigger church. It was a learning curve for me when we first started attending because I grew up in smaller churches.² The church I attended through high school graduation averaged 200 people. The church I attended in college started around 70 and dwindled drastically by the time we left a decade later. The church after that was between 300-400 people. I knew everyone at the first two and most people at the last. They were  intimate, often uncomfortably so.

Waymaker Church averages 500 people a service and we have two services. I know more and more people at the church and I still stand in the lobby and see streams of people whom I do not know. We have a big building and we turn the lights down when we worship and you can give online. I know some of you hate that. You’ve been in churches like that that turned into personality cults. You went to a church that was similar and it was driven by performance and numbers and showed little of the gospel behind the scenes and maybe not even on the platform. You might even (in a tiny secretive way) think worse of me for working at a church like that. 

That’s cool. I get it. But some of you have fled to a church like that because you’ve been hurt in a church like the ones I grew up in. You’ve found the Spirit speaking in loud worship with dim lights and it is the closest you feel to God the entire week. On the other hand, some of you attend tiny, liturgical churches and your souls are fed on the words that saints have repeated throughout generations and the weekly communion.³ 

There can be bad, unsafe, harmful churches with any church structure. And God’s Spirit can move in brilliant ways in any church structure.⁴ You might like one better and yet God calls you to plant your feet in another type and be part of what’s happening. Or you might pray for years and finally move near a church that you’ve always dreamed of. It might or might not be what you hoped.

Different churches can do different things and serve different people and show a different side of God’s work in the world. We have a large building (a prefab building no less) and we use that building.⁵ Kids are busting out the seams on Sunday morning. We have a training classes for adults in the evenings. We have a playground and walking trails and a coffee shop that draws in the local community and supports church plants. 

When we first started attended Waymaker, I was a little cynical.⁶ God repeatedly told me to take a seat and pay attention instead of being so judgmental. Waymaker is not perfect and no church ever will be. But when God’s Spirit is at work and God’s Word is taught, and God’s people are obedient, God will be glorified and it will look fantastically different from place to place. It should look different, just like my life is different from yours. God has never done cookie-cutter work.⁷

If I ever plant a church, it will be different from Waymaker. But the things that Waymaker does so well, we won’t be able to do. We’ll have to do something else, not something better. If you’re keeping lists, keep both lists. If God has set you somewhere, be there wholeheartedly, even if you think you’d rather be somewhere else. Move with integrity; invest your life in those people and that community.   

If you’re looking for a church, look for one that is Biblically grounded, Spirit led, and emotionally healthy. This might be a tiny liturgical church. It might be a large church with multiple services. It might be a church that’s actively involved in a denomination. It will probably be worth your time to try out places you never thought might be it for you. One style might be your preference, but God can do other things in other places and you might need that.

I’d love to hear about your church experiences if you’d like to share!

1. Because sometimes church leaders are awful, sometimes there are so many churches we don’t feel compelled to stick it out through minor disagreements, sometimes structures make it impossible for good fruit to grow, because sometimes Scripture is weaponized against people, because sometimes churches have great doctrine but don’t treat people well.

2. All of these words, “big,” “smaller,” it all depends on context unless we’ve agreed on a definition.

3. Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, let’s not quibble here

4. Church history is such a good reminder of this.

5. I do miss the beautiful old architecture of churches but have you considered how much they cost and how long they take to build? Tradeoffs everywhere you look.

6. We started attending there because they have a disability ministry and we have a son with disabilities. Sometimes choices are made for you, even when you are searching for a church.

7. And friends, context really matters. A church in Lynchburg with hundreds of churches can and will be very different from a church in New England.