CC-Tell me how you picked a local church....

[HS Mom in NC]

Tell me how you picked a local church...after you tell me which category you fit into. I think my categories cover everyone who hasn't been at the same church their whole adult lives that their parent(s) picked or that their denomination assigned/strongly recommended. But if not, tell me about that too.

Category A
 

1. You became a Christian when you were not living with your parent(s).
2. You didn't join the church your parent(s) attended (whether you were living with them or not) or your parents weren't church goers.

3. You're part of a wing of Christianity that doesn't assign/strongly recommend a local church based on your home address.

 

How did you hear about that very first church you chose to attend?  What specifically were you looking for in a church at that time? Was there a tie breaker of some kind that made you choose one church over another that was a contender? What was that tie breaker? Roughly how many years ago was that? What have you looked for in churches since then?

Category B
 

1. You became a Christian while you were living with your parent(s) and attended your parent(s) church then at some point you attended a different church than your parent(s).

2. You're part of a wing of Christianity that doesn't assign/strongly recommend a local church based on your home address.

 

How did you hear about the churches you chose to attend when it was up to you?  What specifically were you and your spouse and kids looking for in a church?  Were there any tie breakers that have made you choose some churches over other contenders? Roughly how many years ago did you choose each church?

I'm asking because I suspect there are some ideas for outreach being thrown around my church these days that are more about what the people already attending are looking for with little to no thought of what someone who isn't here yet might want.  So, I thought I'd just ask a wide range of people who have BTDT how finding a church worked for them and their thoughts on the process. No judgement.  No assumptions. I want to understand what others think about this.

Add any thoughts you have about outreach to the unchurched (Christian and non-Christian) because I really want to learn from as many different perspectives as I can on this.  I have very thick skin and I'm asking for personal experiences, personal opinions and honest feedback, so please don't be thin skinned when reading other peoples' responses and replying to them. If it's potentially upsetting to hear that some posters don't like how some churches do things and you like how those churches do it or if you're bothered that some posters like the way some churches do things and you don't like how those churches do things just bow out now and skip this thread entirely. I don't want people getting this thread shut down.

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

I'm category B and so is my husband.

 

We picked our local church based on these criteria, in descending order:

 

1. Doctrine and scriptural positions

2. The stability and intimacy of the pastors and elders with the body.

3. The structure and style of the service

4. The location in proximity to us.

 

Our church is 45 minutes away from our home. Not ideal, but our new home is 5 minutes away. No outreach or mailers would have been useful, as we picked the church based on their stated doctrinal positions and preaching, and the way they felt on a handful of key questions. We looked for churches with a good reputation among members of our old church and the community, and three fit the bill. Then we called around, visited, asked questions, and pared down from there.

 

Things like podcasts or online sermons are super helpful to people like us, along with the church having their financials and missions statements at the ready (this one has something they call the Connect Center, where documents and materials are kept along with someone on hand at all times to meet new visitors and answer questions about the church and programs).

 

We don't love the style of worship or some of the programs and casual structure, but those were way down the list and only used as a tie breaker between this body and the other good option, after we visited both for a month. Far and away the sermons, teaching selections, and availability of these materials on the website was the biggest help.

 

Hope that helps!

 

ETA - we are in a church that isn't th denomination either of us grew up in. We didn't come to these churches from a strong community tradition. We evaluate strictly on content and the bodies, themselves, more than the parent church or denomination they belong to.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[Starr]

I have moved all my life and been to many different churches. There is nothing that beats being invited to church and/or friended once you get there. 

[rebcoola]

I am in Category A we simply looked up churches around town and learned what we could and than visited the ones that we felt had Statements of belief we could agree with.   We went to service if the service didn't bring up any obvious differences than we ask to meet with the pastor or elder.  In our case the decision ended up being pretty easy in the end their was only one church we agreed with.

 

[MarinesWife]

I have more to say but the quick answer is that I was in high school and my neighbor friend invited me.

 

I lived lots of places for the following 15 years and stuck with that denomination the whole time.

 

My husband was not that denomination and wanted to try other churches. We tried the one that a co-worker invited him to attend.

 

When we moved cross country we tried lots of churches but ultimately attended the one where we were invited to by new homeschool friends.

 

Same when we moved again.

 

Knowing somebody is going to be the thing that makes it easier for a person to enter the doors of the church.

[Alice]

I'm in Category A. I was invited to church by a friend in high school and became a Christian then. My parents were not attending church at that time, although had a Christian background. That church happened to be Presbyterian. I attended through high school with my friend's family. In college I went to the chapel services on campus, it was a historcially Baptist school and the services were sort of generally Protestant. Somewhere towards the end of college I stopped going to church and became fairly lapsed in my faith. When I went to medical school I did not attend church for the first two years. I was in a serious relationship with a non-Christian at the time and I think that was part of it. I still felt some desire to go to church but I just didn't. When my boyfriend and I broke up, I felt a very strong desire to return to church. It was a Friday and I went on Sunday. I picked the church I went to that weekend because it was close to my house (walking distance) and I had seen in on walks through the neighborhood and thought it was pretty. I also had noticed that it was Presbyterian although I think that was less important to me then. 

 

That church is still the same one I attend now, 21 years later. I met my husband there and now we attend together. I did visit other churches at the beginning but ended up not liking them as much. 

 

What kept me there was a sense of community. Almost immediately I was invited to lunch with some people. Very soon after that I was invited to dinner at someone's house. It wasn't a fake community though or a sense of "outreach". There was another church that I visited during that period that kept calling and trying to follow up and sent me cards in the mail that were supposed to encourage me to return. Somehow those gave me a feeling of being a "prize" that they wanted to get or that I was just a checkbox on a list. The church where I ended up had people that more made me feel like they wanted to hang out with me. That was very appealing. It was also very small, which fit at the time an still fits. In the 21 years that I've been there we've had lots of turnover (we are in an area with a lot of State Dept or military people) and we've grown but the largest we've been is about 150. 

 

We don't have a lot of programs at our church because of the size. Every now and then we'll get someone who wants to try something for outreach but we just can't maintain a big flashy program. We did start a fundraiser fun run that has been going on 10+ years now and that raises thousands of dollars for local charities. We try and partner with the local charities in the community that are already doing work. But we don't have things like a youth group or basketball gym or center for music or a lot of things that the big churches around have. I still think we do community very well and that is what has been important to us. My husband and I are part of a group of families that has lunch at our house every other week after church. We specifically did it then so that we could easily have a place to invite visitors or new people. 

 

Over the years I've noticed a lot of people find us on the Internet when they are looking for a specific denomination. Or they are just looking for a church nearby. I find they often stay because of a personal interaction like being invited to a house or a good conversation afterwards during the fellowship time, or being offered a ride to the Metro. 

[Wheres Toto]

Category B

 

1. You became a Christian while you were living with your parent(s) and attended your parent(s) church then at some point you attended a different church than your parent(s).

2. You're part of a wing of Christianity that doesn't assign/strongly recommend a local church based on your home address.

 

How did you hear about the churches you chose to attend when it was up to you?  What specifically were you and your spouse and kids looking for in a church?  Were there any tie breakers that have made you choose some churches over other contenders? Roughly how many years ago did you choose each church?

 

I'm asking because I suspect there are some ideas for outreach being thrown around my church these days that are more about what the people already attending are looking for with little to no thought of what someone who isn't here yet might want.  So, I thought I'd just ask a wide range of people who have BTDT how finding a church worked for them and their thoughts on the process. No judgement.  No assumptions. I want to understand what others think about this.

 

Add any thoughts you have about outreach to the unchurched (Christian and non-Christian) because I really want to learn from as many different perspectives as I can on this.  I have very thick skin and I'm asking for personal experiences, personal opinions and honest feedback, so please don't be thin skinned when reading other peoples' responses and replying to them. If it's potentially upsetting to hear that some posters don't like how some churches do things and you like how those churches do it or if you're bothered that some posters like the way some churches do things and you don't like how those churches do things just bow out now and skip this thread entirely. I don't want people getting this thread shut down.

 

Thanks.

 

Category B applies to both Dh and I.   I grew up UMC, DH grew up Lutheran and then UMC.

 

We attended my childhood church because it happened to be right around the corner from our house, we would go visit my grandmother who lived a couple houses down from the church after services, we liked the sentimentality of it, and we liked the pastor.  This was where my ds was baptized.    The problem was it was a very small church and congregation.  Nursery School and Sunday School classes were limited and my son was not capable of sitting still in services.  Once my dd was born, it was impossible to actually enjoy the service trying to wrangle both of them.   We didn't attend any church for a few years.

 

As the kids got to school age, we decided it was time to go back to church.  As much as we would have loved to go back to our small church, we needed someplace that had a stronger children's program.  We joined a church that was just up the road from our house in the opposite direction.   They have Sunday School every Sunday, run a VBS (that we haven't managed to do but still), the kids are involved with their very active children's choir, they have a strong youth group when we get to that point.   We have been going there for two years now.  That's where younger dd was baptized just last year.   We like the pastor, like that it's relaxed and liberal - when we joined the pastor told us it wasn't necessary to agree with every single tenet and it was okay to go with what works for us.  This was important for me since I still have some struggles with what I believe these days.

 

In addition to what was mentioned above, both were also picked due to proximity - both are about 5 minutes away from home in opposite directions.  We could theoretically walk if the roads in between weren't dangerous to walk on (cyclists, 40mph speed limit that everyone pushes, no sidewalk, no shoulders, very windy and hilly so no visibility). 

[DawnM]

Hmmm....I don't really get the categories.  I became a Christian as a child and I attended my parents church while I was a child.  Is that what you mean?  

 

When we moved to NC, the church picked us.  I really don't know how else to describe it.  We kept running into people we liked and they all had one thing in common, the church they attended.

 

I was very reluctant.  It isn't a denomination I feel esp. comfortable with because I don't agree with them 100% doctrinally, but I am not sure I agree with any particular denomination 100%.

 

We attended a membership class and there were about 100 or more people in there.  The associate pastor teaching the class sought us out afterwards (we we sitting in the back) and he kept talking and asked questions until we made a connection.  He actually dated a woman in college who I had known in Africa.......it was an amazing coincidence.  That woman's son was in my class and we had been friends since we were 7 years old!

 

Anyway, it just felt right and we joined and have been there ever since.  It isn't perfect by any stretch, but it is where we are supposed to be.

 

In the major tenants of the faith, it is definitely what we believe, but there are minor differences that bug me.  Not enough to leave or make a big deal about, and I have found that dome others in the church don't hold to those either.

[MyLittleBears]

I am in category B and hubby is A. 

 

We look for a church that shares our doctrinal position and is warm and welcoming to outsiders. Proximity to us is a plus but not a deal breaker.  Fortunately ours is only 5 minutes away since we moved.

[ktgrok]

Category B. Parents are Episcopal but not practicing. Husband is Episcopal but not practicing. I'm Catholic. I picked our current parish after trying out services at several in my area. Honestly, it just felt right. The one closest to me didn't kneel during services which was kind of a deal breaker for me. (they do now, but now I'm settled in at the other parish). Another just felt less friendly. The one we go to is very friendly to non Catholics and visitors which was important to me as my husband isn't Catholic, has an amazing children's program and is well run. And they have multiple programs to help the community, also important to me. (things like food bank, a program to fund emergency needs of the community, helping fund and staff a free medical clinic, setting up a place with tutors to help homeless school children with their homework, etc etc etc.)

[creekland]

I'm not sure which category I belong to.  My parents sent us kids to Sunday School with our neighbor when we were young - mainly to get a Sunday morning to themselves.  They never attended themselves and we didn't stay for church.  I wasn't fond of going - esp since I had to wear a dress.

 

When I was 11 my parents got divorced.  Both wanted custody of us kids, so both started attending church.  That's what good parents did in those days.  My sister and I got dragged to Sunday School and church with our parents - well, I got dragged, my sister liked it.  Since I lived with my dad and my sister with my mom, both of us ended up belonging to those respective churches.  Neither parent attends church now.

 

I consider myself to have become a Christian when I lived with my grandmother in FL for a year - attending her church.  She went to church until her death.

 

I didn't become strong in my faith until my college years and taking (secular) religion classes - digging deep into different views of thought and deciding what I believe.

 

What I believe is often still different than what most churches believe when it comes to certain areas, but I'm content with my solid relationship with God.

 

You pick which category you think that is.

 

Hubby and I have moved often and have picked our churches based upon:

 

A)  What they believe.  Currently we can find this on web sites, but in earlier days we called the pastor.

 

B)  How we felt we fit in when we attended.  Were people friendly?  What did we think of the style of service?  Was there a dress code (formal or informal)?  I still don't like wearing dresses!

 

C)  Our kids.  We wanted a place where they felt they fit in too.  We left a church when they abruptly fired a youth leader my kids loved.  We were all stunned as we'd been very active in that church (teaching Sunday School, etc) and never even got advanced notice.  My kids (teens) said they didn't feel they could worship there any longer.  We weren't sure where to go next (had been there for years) and opted to try a church where they had quite a few friends due to a community youth group.  It's further away than we like (25 minutes from home) and it's larger than we like (close to 1000 people in three services each week), but the sermons are good and it suited our kids.  We (parents) thought we'd go elsewhere closer to home once our kids left home, but we've gotten to know people there, still love the sermons, and the church was incredibly awesome when I dealt with health issues - they're still awesome with it actually.  We can't leave.  It's family.  We've just gotten used to the drive at this point.

 

There are still some points where we disagree with the minor points of faith, but that will happen with us and any church.  We discuss our views with our boys (who have adopted our views since they are quite strong Biblically) and stay mum at church unless in a small group where it seems ok to share.  It's nothing major (faith-shaking) or anything - just details.

[PuddleJumper1]

Category B.

 

Before our youngest was born we chose based on doctrine, ministry outreach and the openess of the congregation (we've been to churches we loved but if you weren't born into it or had a certain last name it was very hard to make friends)

 

Since our youngest was born with significant special needs our main concern is whether the church is accepting and supportive of those with special needs and our previous criteria. We left our church when he was 2 and found another that welcomed us with open arms. Our church is actively developing ministries to those with SN. We visited dozens before finding our church home.

 

We are non-denom and lean toward charismatic.

Edited July 19, 2016 by PuddleJumper1

[TravelingChris]

Category B

 

 

We look for Biblical teaching, service to the community and world, friendliness, type of church service, and used to be youth programs.  Other good features are Sunday School classes for adults (we always attend those except for the times I was teaching children's Sunday School), style of worship-- I greatly prefer either traditional or a blend of traditional and worship music.  

[sheryl]

I'm in the A1 category.  My Mother was a believer but didn't go to church that often.  My Dad didn't go except the once-or so-a year on Easter, etc.  However, my Dad did come around later in life.

 

I became a follower of Jesus about 3 years after I married.  My husband later. 

 

Boy, I hope this does not come across the wrong way at all, but - church is not supposed to be about what a person "wants".  It' about meeting and following Jesus.  Maybe I don't understand your question.

 

IOW, people (society doesn't help with this) have the mindset of what can I "get" from this church.  I'm not sure that's even Biblical.   Jesus IS THE GIFT!

 

Sure there are programs etc.  But, even those can be overdone and/or with wrong intentions.

 

We were attending a small church that was very dry (before dd was born).   On 3 separate occasions we had people invite us to "name" church.  We went and thought the preaching was the best.  That was in the early 90's and we're stull there!   We have a lot of Bible Studies and programs.  But, it boils down to a "relationship" with Jesus.  Believers can be too "churchy" going to this and that and miss the boat in spiritually growing and/or sharing with people. 

 

Do the unchurched see believers faith in "action".  That's what I want.  Not to hit someone over the head but to just share with someone. 

 

We have black/white, rich/poor, all ages, etc. at our church.    We like that.

 

I guess this didn't help much! :)  

 

[Zinnia]

We are category B.

 

I was raised charismatic/non-denominational, and my dh was raised high church evangelical (First Baptist), which when we got married felt like worlds apart.  Through the years (15), it's felt a bit closer together.  

 

When we got married, I was experimenting with churches.  I didn't like the small, local, no oversight churches I had grown up in, and I wanted something different.  Dh was unchurched, but I wasn't having that.   :)  So when we got married, we started looking for a compromise.

 

We looked at doctrinal things, we looked at styles, and mostly, we've gone by how it felt.  Totally charismatic answer there.  LOL.  We spent about 5 years of our marriage in low-church style Baptist churches, then another 4 years in a Vineyard church, then another 5 years in a church that was transitioning from Vineyard to Anglican.  We liked the tiny tastes of Anglican but left when it got too Anglican for us.  And we've spent a year in a mega-church that doesn't put their theology right out there, but has a background of church of God/charismatic style.  We love the mega-church the most, but it's a good 45 minute drive for us. But worth it.

 

We ended up in the church we are in now after about a year or two of being uncomfortable where we were as theology changed, but it wasn't laid out there for the congregation...just a slow change from the pulpit about things.  We woke up one day and thought, hey, this is farther than we want to go, and we can't teach our kids these things.  So we started looking for something with more doctrinal beliefs that lined up with ours.  We listened to sermons from the new church, looked at their website, then visited, adn we felt the feel, so we started attending.  

 

One thing that I don't love about the new church is that they don't have their doctrinal positions laid out on their website.  I was familiar enough with church of God/charismatic that we can guess on some things, and we are going to do the membership class next month to figure out more.  But it would be helpful to know up front.  

We visited a church that we really, really liked.  They also didn't have their doctrinal stuff on the website (why is this a trend???), but after some diggging, I realized that it was a church plant for southern Baptists.  And as much as we loved the church, we didn't want to attend a southern Baptist church long term, so we ended up not going there.  But we had visited probably 6 weeks before figuring it out.  And it was just luck.  I would have hated to attend for a year or two or three and not figure it out until then.  Because then I'm trapped in the idea of community versus my beliefs and what my kids are learning, and it's much harder.  It feels much easier to just say the beliefs up front.  

Edited July 19, 2016 by Zinnia

[cintinative]

I don't know if I fit in Category A or B.  I grew up going to church with my parents but was not a Christian until college. When in college, I went to church with a friend that led my Bible study.  It was totally unlike any church I had been to. The worship was more contemporary, the Bible was prominent in everything, especially the sermons, and the people were different. To be honest it is hard looking back to know if I just didn't see Christ in people before I was a Christian or if the people were just wishy-washy. Plus, the teens in the church I grew up with were snobby.   In any event, I really felt my friend was different, and her church was different. I felt loved.  So that's where i went during the school year.  

 

During the summer I wasn't sure what I was going to do--I didn't want to go to my parents church.  So I called a local Christian bookstore and asked if they could recommend a Bible-focused church. They recommended a couple churches. The first one I had a bad experience at the first day--people were unfriendly--in a severe way. The second one--was amazing--people were so friendly and I got plugged in right away. I went there for about six years.  I will call it ABC Bible Church.  

 

The two churches (the one during the school year and ABC Bible Church) were very different theologically. It took me awhile to "grow up" in the faith enough to understand how this affected things at the churches. In the end, I switched to a different local church that was like the one I attended in college. The main reason is that the church has oversight outside of itself while the ABC Bible Church was independent and did not.  I won't get into particulars but it became apparent that the independent church had issues arising from this--mostly relating to lack of real accountability for the pastors.  Also I found myself falling in the covenant theology camp and that was not the bent of the independent church.

 

 I still attend the local church I switched to all those years ago--it's been about 18 years now.  

Edited July 19, 2016 by cintinative

[pinkmint]

Definitely category A. 

 

I became a Christian in my mid 20's with not only zero influence from my family of origin, but with them actually thinking I'm a cult member because of all the bible and Jesus talk. They are all what you could call barely nominal Christians in that they will say they believe in God if asked but think that going to church every single week, reading/ owning a copy of the bible and talking about Jesus are just completely fanatical and weird. 

 

I don't know if I could say there's any successful strategy other than God changing my heart. I met people and they were nice to me and truthful without being obnoxious about or ashamed of what they believe. I wasn't looking for a church. The first person I met who I looked at open mindedly with their Christianity suggested it to me and I went to check it out. I stayed because people were nice to me and also because I was open to what I was hearing from the pulpit at that point. It was a non-denominational Christian church heavy on the "grace", which I think can have problems, but it's peobably what I needed at the time. The church we go to now is one we found through word-of-mouth. Also non-denominational Protestant Christian community church. 

[Ellie]

I'd fit in Category A.

 

My criteria in today's world: A church which doesn't have a warm fuzzy name ("The Point." "Venture."); a church that has a clear statement of faith on its web site (and identifies with a specific denomination if it is a denominational church); and that statement of faith to be clear about the who God is, what He has done, and what I need to do to be saved. When I visit it, I don't want flashing lights and loud, poorly written music, and I want a sermon that is pithy, preferably presented by someone who is holding a Bible in one hand.

[Georgiana Daniels]

I'm category A, as my parents never went to church. The only reason I got to go as a child was because my friend's family faithfully picked me up EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY for 6 or 7 years, and really brought me to the Lord.

 

Fast forward to being an adult---came back to the Lord after 3 wasted years and prayed and searched for just the right church. When I met and married hubby and our pastor left, we were totally lost and church hopped for years. Worship, preaching, small groups---we looked to all those different things as a reason to stay in each church.

 

Finally, after extensive praying, Scripture, searching, studying...we became Orthodox. How did we pick a church? Easy peasy....there's only one Orthodox church in town :lol:

 

But...I suspect that doesn't help OP with her question......

[PeachyDoodle]

I'm Category B, hands down. My family has been in the same conservative UMC for over 100 years. As my dad says, he's been attending since nine months before he was born.

 

DH and I left the church a few years ago. There were doctrinal differences, and I was starting to have concerns about what my kids were learning. In some ways, it was very legalistic. But more than anything, I disliked the shift in understanding of the meaning and purpose of CHURCH.

 

This will be an unpopular opinion, but you said you wanted to hear all sides (and I really have NO idea what your church is even considering, so this may not apply at all).

 

I have a long background in church marketing. It was my profession for over a decade. I say that to my shame; I'm sorry I ever did it. While I'm all for outreach and evangelism, I feel that the push towards selling the church as a product has completely turned biblical ecclesiology on its ear. Church services should always be open and welcoming to all -- but the purpose of the gathering of the church is not to evangelize unbelievers; it's to feed and equip the saints. We call it a "service" not because it's where we go to serve God, but because it's where he promises to serve us. Through our pastors and fellow believers, God nourishes us in his Word (read, spoken, sung, and preached) and in the sacraments. After a week in the trenches of a fallen world, hurting others and being hurt by them, God reminds us that he loved us enough to become one of us, to live and to die for us. He reminds us that our sins are forgiven, and he strengthens us to stumble forward, knowing that he has taken care of everything and that when he returns, as he promised, we will see all things restored.

 

This understanding has been lost in a lot of churches. Perhaps it's why so many no longer hold worship "services," but worship "experiences." But we can get rock concerts, laser shows, basketball games, etc., etc. anywhere. We can only get God's gifts in the church.

 

When we started looking for a new church, we looked for one that actually was, first and foremost, a CHURCH. Other doctrinal positions were a very close second. But sadly, we couldn't find a local church that hadn't, to some degree, decided that its function was to court outsiders. We were blessed to stumble blindly into a small congregation that meets online. We have members from around the world. Although the use of technology is modern, everything else about the church is as old-fashioned as it gets.

[Guest]

PeachyDoodle, you worded that so well and captured a sentiment that can be hard to express on this subject. ITA!

[Guest]

Category B.  When we became Orthodox, we could have selected among, oh, 7 parishes that were all within driving distance and all doctrinally the same.  We stayed at our parish (through some thick and thin) because this is where we are going to learn to be Christians.  To love people who are different from us, who have hurt our feelings, whose feelings we have hurt, and so on.  It helps that the music is in the Western 13-tone scale (as opposed to the Middle Eastern 17-tone scale) but that wasn't the deal-maker.  Mostly, we found the Church and people who will be my long-term community.  We serve one another, the larger community, and spend a LOT of time together over the course of a year, both in worship and in just plain fun.  We have been at this parish for about 10 years now.

 

A friend forwarded a blog post from Patheos (link is at the end) called "How to Improve Your Community" (or something like that); the 8th item was this one.  I thought it was interesting because he pretty much summed up what I experience at my parish.  I thought it might be interesting.  On a personal note, the word "fidelity" really caught my attention.  High Fidelity.  

 

8. Join a small church and live in fidelity There is no version of healthy that does not involve learning to live in fidelity to a small community of people over long periods of time. With our culture¹s constant mobility, finding rootedness and stability is a challenge. How can you do it? Join a small faith community and worship with them every single week. Don¹t let anything deter you from that commitment<not kids sports, not grown children who join a nearby congregation, not disappointment with the pastor, not conflict with other members, not the quest for doctrinal purity, not the need to be part of a winning team, not anything. My one caveat is this: don¹t join a church that seems intent on being upwardly mobile, or one that treats you like a customer to which they want to provide religious goods and services. Find a small congregation and give the next three decades of your life to living in fidelity to these people.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paperbacktheology/2016/06/10-ways-to-impac

t-c ulture-that-dont-involve-presidential-politics.html

[vonfirmath]

Category B

 

1. You became a Christian while you were living with your parent(s) and attended your parent(s) church then at some point you attended a different church than your parent(s).

2. You're part of a wing of Christianity that doesn't assign/strongly recommend a local church based on your home address.

 

How did you hear about the churches you chose to attend when it was up to you?  What specifically were you and your spouse and kids looking for in a church?  Were there any tie breakers that have made you choose some churches over other contenders? Roughly how many years ago did you choose each church?

 

I attended my parents' church (Baptist) while I lived in the same town with them. Then I moved to Washington state.  I had a list of "affiliated" churches in WA I had gotten from a friend of the family in TX and I called one (Baptist). I didn't have transportation and they had someone close by who could pick me up, which is how I met my best friend/family away from home. I joined that church for a time. Even staying after the family left until the pastor yelled at me (for attending two different churches) and I decided it was time to go. Meanwhile, I had ALSO been attending a church nearer my home that the family I was friends with were visiting.  So I went there for a time. I checked out a few more Baptist churches with programs for career singles but ultimately ended up joining a First Baptist.  When I met my now-husband and we became serious, I decided we needed to be attending the same church.  So I started visiting his church (A BIble church) and eventually joined.  We left that church when the family moved back to Texas.

 

In Texas, we checked out a church we had gotten a recommendation for from our pastor-friend at Antioch (A Bible church). But it was a bit of a drive and they didn't have a Sunday School class for adults at all.  They expected all adults to work during sunday school time and in the end, we realized we needed more fellowship time with people our own age and we checked out the church that was right next door (Evangelical Free church).  (Some people at the Bible Church had also questioned if we had visited this Next Door church. They seemed to think it was a good church. I'd never heard of Evangelical Free so it was probably those comments that caused us to give them a second look.) Even though we soon moved away, we loved the Traditional service they had (at the time.) and the fellowship with a group our own age And although ultimately we did not join due to one doctrinal difference with the denomination (that was not with their current pastor), we ended up attending regularly and volunteering there for almost 4 years until we moved to north of north Austin and the commute became too much.  (Despite them moving services around such that we could not continue going to Traditional music service and our Sunday school.)

 

We visited churches in the local area.  Attended for a while the one our son was going to AWANA at (First Baptist) and -really- loved the preaching. But they had it set up so the only sunday schools for our age meant we had to go to the Contemporary service always. And it became too much. So we looked around for something different.  We visited a few churches that would be very conveniently close but the music was not at all what we wanted (even more modern and not just the Contemporary that had caused us to go back to looking.) I saw the First Baptist we attend now on the web. They had music programs for the kids (which interested both of us) as well as AWANA. And a variety of music.  So we visited and they had a sunday school class with parents in our stage of life that allowed us to attend the more Traditional (actually mixed. Closed thing to Antioch music we've had since we came.) service of the two and we ended up joining and really love where we go now.

Edited July 19, 2016 by vonfirmath

[3 ladybugs]

I have done this several times so I will tell you my experience. I am category A and so is DH.

 

I was raised with a HEAVY influence of JW. My parents were married in a JW hall but were never practicing as far as I can remember. However I was close to my maternal aunt, who I found out later, took me against my mother's will, when my parents got a divorce for the summer. This aunt is married to an elder JW. After the divorce, my parents were not church going people. My father during this time though, told me in NO uncertain terms that if I ever became a JW he would disown me. 

 

When I was in my early 20's I realized I wanted to settle down in life. I had made some stupid decisions around 18-19 and I decided that when I moved for a job, that I would start looking for a church. So I did. The town that I moved to had churches from one end of a road to the other. So I figured I would start at one end and work my way down to see if I could find a good fit. I went to a UU church, and it wasn't for me. I didn't feel right there. I think the doctrine turned me off. I then went with a new friend to a Prespererian (sp?) church. This church was MASSIVE. I felt like a little person in a huge space and it wasn't good. They did everything right, I just was VERY overwhelmed. I was thinking of going to the Roman Catholic church next when I met someone who is Lutheran, and decided to give them a try. 

 

The Lutheran church was small. 130 people in that church means people are in the aisles, that is how small it is. There was this elderly couple in the back that would always sit in the back. She grabbed my arm and led me to the church basement for fellowship. She was all of about 90 lbs but she wouldn't let me go till I went down there. After I got to know a few people it felt like home and a few months later I found myself baptized and a regular member. 

 

My husband was a cradle Catholic. He has a nun in his family. LOTS of Catholic traditions. He had fallen away from the church in college, and his jewish friend ironically helped bring him back to the church and he was just going to the church that was closest to him. When I met him, he was going to the closest catholic church to him.  Our courtship and marriage was a whirlwind. In a period of 10 months, we started dating, got engaged, and were married. Also in that time he moved for his work and I followed him. So I converted to RC for him. Again we went to the closest church for us. A year later he got a job transfer back to the area that I was living in. Strange how that worked. Because I had so many friends at that church, we decided that we would be half lutheran/half catholic. We then choose the catholic church based on location in relation to the Lutheran church. So I ended up going to that catholic church that I thought about going to years earlier. 

 

All was well till we had our first take home baby. I had had to go through IVF to get him (less invasive methods of help resulted in triplets that we lost). I was getting ready to go back for frozen embryo transfer and suddenly many people in the Catholic church started raising their eyebrows. 2 months later I got diagnosed with cancer and they all rallied around me again. Then I started having issues with needing treatment for my cancer that could prohibit me from carrying a child. I went to a priest for spiritual help, and he told me that I should give my embryos up for adoption. My in-laws said that it was just that priest but I felt like I was kicked when I was at my lowest.

 

Shortly there after a new pastor at the Lutheran church, and his wife started to not feel welcome at the church. I know that sounds odd, but honestly the aging population at the church, started complaining about the noises children were making in services. The pastor and his wife had 2 children that were both very young. She was in a position where she was dreading coming to church. Needless to say, he left (moved on the other side of the planet... really!!). When they left, so did we. 

 

So we went from 2 churches to no churches, relatively quickly. DH said that we should try to be Catholic so we decided to try a church near our house. By this point I wasn't really in it. My cancer had been discovered because of my desire to get my children and I knew most people wouldn't believe that I was called to do IVF, nor that IVF saved my life. However I tried my best. My DH got laid off and was out of work for 7 months. 6 months into it, I went to Florida to visit my mother who had her mother visiting her. I went to a Catholic church down there, while my DH went to the Catholic church up here. I had a 3 year old with me so to say I didn't hear all of the sermon was an understatement. However I heard the priest say something to the effect that if you were unemployed, it was your own fault and that you were not using your "gifts". I leave that church SOOO thankful that DH wasn't with me. A few days later I find out he heard a nearly identical sermon up here. :(

 

DH wants to be unchurched. He has no desire to go anywhere. He feels kicked in the gut by the church he grew up with. His parents say it is "just an east coast thing" but he feels that is a cop out. In desperation on the way back up I start talking about becoming ANYTHING. Maybe Mormon, maybe something else. I told him that I was hoping to go and get the frozen embryos in the next year, and when I get pregnant with this insanely high risk pregnancy, I am going to need spiritual guidance that wouldn't be judgmental of the IVF. He agrees and suggest that we try another Lutheran church. 

 

I go online and find that there are 2 Lutheran churches that are about equal distance from us that are not the one that we left earlier. We pretty much flip a coin and decide on one. We go in and it is a TOTALLY different environment. They have a cry room, they have active children's program, they have children's sermons. Speakers are in areas so that if you have to leave for one reason or another (for families) you can still hear what is going on. It was amazing!! We are still a bit gun shy about church but we start going every week and it feels like home to us. Then when our next child is about 2 weeks from been born, we join the church as a family. I had left this decision to my husband. That is when he was ready. Our youngest is then baptized in this church. 

 

This is where my story should end, but it isn't. My oldest (and eventually my youngest) is learning German. The school he goes to is affiliated with a Lutheran church. This is part of their outreach. They have a german service there. So this summer we started going (occasionally) to this church for that service. It has been fun and we feel it helps all of us understand german just a bit more. Now we will likely always go to the church that we joined, but this is giving us something we can't get there. 

 

To me the biggest things that a church needs to do, is be inclusive of families. Children will make noise, babies will cry, be prepared for that. Have a family inclusive environment. Piped in microphones to quiet rooms help. No one likes to go away from church every week and get nothing from it. Programs for older children to do while adults learn something also, are also good. Family events are also helpful. On the the other side of the coin, prayer ministries, prayer shawl ministries, and other things like that are also important. If you make your church "fun" they will come. Our church is in the country. It takes us 30 minutes to get there on Sundays. Yet we are growing and we get people that travel even further then us to go there. It really doesn't take much. 

[Retired]

grew up in legalistic church left home became a born-again Christian and started church shopping.  I just stop in on sunday morning services until I find a pastor I like.  I have my conviction and go where the holy spirit leads.

 

What you need to ask is why people leave the church?  I can tell you one of the biggest for me is having a great pastor but the congregation does not include you.  I went to my last church for several years.  I talked to people after service and tried to integrate into there "family"    I had moved to the area and they were friendly at a superficial level but they were not interested in making friends.

 

I also know lots of seekers and they will tell me that a church looks cold or they have meet people from that church and they are cold people.

 

So the best marking for a church is truly loving people  not Sunday morning cold Christian  chair warmers. 

 

 

[happi duck]

Category B

 

I regret ever leaving my childhood denomination but maybe our path was what dh needed to be where we are now so I try to be fine with it all.

 

Because of my experiences I picked my church based on two questions:

Do you think God loves *me*? and

Does this church officially or unofficially hate/leave out a group of people?

 

These two questions trump any programs or welcome strategies because if if the answers are:

Yes and No then the people will probably be kind.

Or

No and yes then no matter how consciously I am welcomed I will never be completely in and even if I'm not the "targeted" group I will be affected because I can't stand by while others exclude people in the name of God.

[6packofun]

I became a Christian at age 18 right before leaving for college.  The day I got there I met my dh, so I pretty much wanted to know which church HE was going to.  LOL  But what convinced me more was the campus mentor people on staff who were so welcoming and kind that I probably would have gone anyway.  They were part of an association of churches that I attended in college and then dh and I attended as a couple, married and with kids until about 5 years ago!  It was non-denominational but probably closely aligned with Southern Baptist, maybe?  Not sure...they are similar to Campus Crusade (now CRU).

 

Anyhow, after we left that association of churches--not because of any dispute, btw--we had to choose from 2 S. Baptist churches. (We actually looked at many denominations and non-denom, but our choices were limited and one had something about the holiness doctrine which we do not follow.)  One, a small Baptist church and one a very large almost mega-church-ish place that always seemed non-denom to us but we found out later is technically S. Baptist also. Our home was equally distant from both so travel was not a factor.  

 

We chose the smaller church because we were welcomed so well and the people were so friendly!  Dh was not happy there by the time we left after 3 years, mainly because although we loved the people, the pastor was sort of uninspiring.  They seemed to lack outreach that we were so used to as well, BUT I think that during my time there I came to be much less "seeker sensitive" than we were during those other church years!  I came to see church more as a place for Christians to be fed, nourished, encouraged, held accountable by loving church family members, taught, etc.  My job was to INVITE and be a witness outside of church so that others would be drawn to Christ no matter what church they ended up in.  (But I still wanted more outreach!  lol)

 

Then, we moved way across town and it just happened to be very close to the OTHER church.  We are there now, partly because dh recently got a PT job there!  Most of our kids like it; however, they are almost all older teens and young adults now and one dd doesn't really care for it because it's so big and one really has to work at feeling included.  We LOVE the teaching.  I LOVE the missions they pursue and the opportunities to serve in the community that being part of a larger church can offer.

 

If we had to find yet another church again, I'd focus on 1) biblical, expository teaching, and 2) a loving community that offers many places to serve and use one's gifts.

 

Btw, in both of these Baptist churches, there have been some leaders who are reformed/Calvinist and we are NOT.  But it's not a deal-breaker for us unless certain things were mentioned/preached ALL the time or they were added to some membership requirement or something.  lol

Edited July 19, 2016 by 6packofun

[kentuckymom]

I don't think I fit either category well.... I became a Christian the summer after high school at a national youth event for the denomination my mother's church is a part of. I grew up attending said church sporadically. My father is an atheist, and the agreement in our house was that, once my brothers and I could get ourselves dressed and feed ourselves breakfast on Sunday mornings, my mom couldn't force us to go to church. She was welcome to bring us, but only if we wanted to go. I don't know if it was because I liked hanging out with my mom more as the only girl or what, but I attended more often than my brothers, who stopped attending altogether by middle school and are unbelievers to this day. 

 

So I started college two hours from home as a new Christian. If there had been a church of my mother's denomination (Evangelical Covenant - it's a pretty centered in the midwest, and you may not have heard of it) in town I would probably have gone there, but there wasn't. My RA, who also led a Bible study in the dorm, invited me to check out the interdenominational charismatic church that she attended and I liked it, so I stayed. As I got older and more mature in my faith I realized I disagreed with some of the doctrines in that church, but I stayed all the way through college because the people there loved and cared for all of the college students who attended. If I ever lived in that town as an adult I'd choose a different church, but it was a great temporary home.

 

When I moved to Kentucky for grad school, I had just come out of an experience of deciding on graduate school in Spanish over seminary, and I had come to identify more strongly with the Evangelical Covenant church after visiting and applying to their seminary, even though I eventually decided not to attend. As I said, the denomination is relatively small, but there were two newish church plants in town so I visited both of them. At the first, I just didn't feel very welcomed. The pastor was a former campus minister, and most of the congregation consisted in students he'd brought over from his former ministry. Even though I was a recent college graduate, I didn't feel like I could fit into that group. The second church plant was the opposite in terms of welcoming and also in terms of demographics. Everyone greeted me and learned my name and was really happy to see me. However, almost everyone was also 40+. At 40, I now chuckle at the idea of people in their 40's seeming old, but they do when you're 23. I did visit that church multiple times, but, despite the fact that everyone was really friendly, I always felt a little on the outside. I started attending a Christian fellowship group for graduate students and asked the other members where they went to church. I visited a Presbyterian church that was not very friendly and that I also realized pretty quickly I had pretty severe doctrinal disagreements with. A fellow Bible study member invited me to visit the United Methodist church she attended. I was a little skeptical because I had attended a UMC affiliated college that was very much on the progressive end theologically. However, I figured I'd give it a try because she said there was a great young adult Sunday school class. I loved the class, and decided to attend a retreat they were having the following weekend. That was where I met the man who became my husband. He happened to have not made it to Sunday school the previous week. DH had also recently moved to town, for work as opposed to school. He was raised UMC and just picked the biggest congregation in town. About a year in, he decided he wanted to be part of a small congregation and started attending a little UMC church not far from the home he had recently purchased (which is where we live now).

 

After four years in Kentucky I got a job teaching at a small college in a Chicago suburb. Since I'd happily been part of a UMC church in Kentucky, I decided to try the closest one to me in Illinois. I ended up not visiting any other churches, because that church was so welcoming. The UMC is a big tent theologically and, while I agreed completely with the pastor doctrinally, I pretty quickly discovered that not everyone in the congregation was on the same page. I decided to stay anyway, yet again, because, despite the church's deficiencies, the people were really good at loving with the love of Christ. During that year I got engaged to DH and we decided that it made more sense for me to return to Kentucky than for him to move to Chicago. I don't  think we would have stayed at that church long term if we'd settled in the area, especially after we had children. As an adult Christian, I can sift through theology I think is wrong and throw out the chaff, but I wouldn't want to be at a church where I was unsure what my fellow members would be teaching my kids. Also, there were very few families with young kids and not much in the way of children's and  youth ministry.

 

When DH and I got married I joined the small UMC church he had been attending. We did visit a few other churches, all UMC, but none seemed better than the one he was already a member of, and that we could walk to from our house, so we stayed. When we were first married, the church, though small, was pretty diverse generationally and had a small but strong children's and youth ministry program. Then a new pastor was appointed and things started going downhill. He fired the long time youth pastors (a married couple who live down the street from us) because a) he didn't get along with the husband and b) he wanted more control. Many of the families with kids in the youth group left in protest, and the church lost more members as time went on and the pastor continued to push out leaders he didn't like. We stuck it out for almost a year because we were committed to positions that lasted for the calendar year, but, at the end of the year, we made it clear that we were not continuing in our positions and did not want new ones. We started looking for a new church in January. We stuck mostly with UMC churches, yet again. We did visit one Anglican church. I absolutely loved it, but DH just couldn't reconcile himself to joining a church outside of the denomination he'd always been a part of. He presented reasonable criteria for not visiting again - it was on the other side of town and it was a small church plant with very few young families. However, I still would have stayed because a) I agreed fully with the church's doctrine b) the worship style was high liturgical, which I think it best because it's focused on God, not on the touchy feely emotional stuff that so much worship these days is focused on and c) it was small, but it was also pretty new so there was a good chance of it growing. However, I wanted to find a church that we both loved, so we visited some more UMC churches. We ended up deciding on a medium sized church near our house. The most important criteria were a) a strong children's a youth ministry b) a good adult Sunday school class and c) a welcoming congregation. The pastor at the time was just an okay preacher in my opinion, and the worship style is a little too contemporary for my taste, but it met the other criteria so we settled there and have been there for 9 1/2 years now. We're unlikely to change churches unless we move out of the area. Interestingly, the church we left has since been closed down and merged with our current congregation. We like to say we were just a little ahead of the curve :).

 

Honestly, I think churches should only advertise to the extent of letting people know they exist and making their doctrinal beliefs clear on their website. I also think it's a great idea to offer programs that aren't directly related to the church and invite people to attend said programs to check out a worship service. Other than that, though, I think the best form of outreach is just to love the people that God sends you. That's really the main theme of all the churches I've stuck around in for awhile. They all had flaws, even the one I've been a member of for 9 years, but they all had people who welcomed and loved me from the start.

 

[MeghansMom]

My parents never attended church. They said church was for hypocrites. However they did make sure I knew the Bible. I started attending church in my late twenties, married to my second husband. We were having issues in our life and I decided to start attending church. (My DH is Baptist and attended as a boy and young man). I picked Lutheran because my great grandmother was Lutheran (she was Catholic but she disagreed with a lot that they professed and switched to Lutheran). We found a small church (lcms) and enjoyed it, even becoming baptized-my father, our children and myself and my parents even started attending. There was a problem at the church where certain elders and members did not take it kindly when the new pastor refused to allow people who were not Lutheran to take Communion (or Lutherans that could not take it for certain reasons). They forced out the pastor and the church split with some staying, some going to another church and others going to a different church. We were one of the ones that went to a different church, still lcms. It was a pretty miserable experience and between these two experiences, I saw that my parents where right and that church was full of not just sinners, but HYPOCRITES. Hypocrites that took pleasure in tearing down everyone else while exalting themselves and their chosen few.

 

This was FL, we moved to SC. Just before we moved I had given birth to our twins. Emily died and Meghan was born and survived with VACTERLS Association. We had hospice involved while I was pregnant, we knew Emily would die and possibly Meghan too. Our pastor told us that was not allowed to use hospice, we could only use him. I was blamed for the fact that only I was attending church by this point because no one else in our family wanted to attend. I also had people turn against me in the church because I was put on bedrest and could not attend including a funeral. Because of course I was suppose to endanger my life and the life of my babies to be there. Lots of other issues of again, the congregation being a bunch of hypocrites. My parents had switched to a different Lutheran lcms church too, but again, it was filled with a bunch of sniping hypocrites and they stopped attending. Shortly after we buried Emily, we moved to the Upstate of SC. Our next door neighbor was a missions pastor and we started attending his church. It went pretty well but it was (is) a HUGE church. We were not used to that. Also switching from Lutheran lcms (the children being alters and such) to a more modern church, gave the kids a shock, lol. Not that it was not a sound church. The sermons were great. We started to have some issues though with certain people that chose to judge us based on things they did not understand and we were not going to explain to them, it was not their business. We stopped attending. We then started attending a friend's church and we liked it but we could not participate in most activities because of my DH's work schedule (he was out of state during the week and would be home on weekends, and on occasion a double week, etc). Also this friend of mine who is very religious felt she could dictate my every action and if I did not do exactly as she said and did that was cause for extreme disapproval. Her husband was quite abusive to me too, he did not like my perfume (which people consistently compliment me on), or that I wore make up or that I am fat and so on. Her children were also being rude and judgmental of my daughter and myself. (This family loaned me their book by the Pearls if that gives you an idea of their philosophy), it got to the point that I was afraid to open my mouth in their presence or even dare move). They kept track of when I attended church and did not, how many lights were on in my house SERIOUSLY and other such things. Things came to a head when we had it out and we stopped attending their church. We went back to our original church and it had become even more uppity and condescending. So we just gave up. We are guilty of the sins that even Jesus could not forgive, me being too fat (18/20) and us not having money to throw around. My daughter does attend AHG and they have been a saving grace. I have not totally given up on my faith because of them and because I guess I am a glutton for punishment. They are a lovely group of gracious, loving women. My daughter did want to attend youth group and I found a church near us that is Baptist and more liberal than past churches we have attended. She does like it. We stopped attending for a bit because I have not been well but we are starting back this Wednesday (tomorrow). I am very cautious and I do not have the thirst for God like I had before...I feel nothing.  

 

My daughter had not wanted to attend for awhile either. We attended CC and my daughter has multiple birth defects. At one point she was seeing twelve specialists and had multiple surgeries on her spine, heart, anus, etc. She just got rid of her feeding tube two years ago and still wears pull-ups. We missed quite a few sessions and instead of lifting us up, we were gossiped about--why could we make it to a birthday party or to gymnastics if we could not make it to CC? Seriously? My child has missed Christmases and Thanksgivings and her birthdays being in the hospital at times fighting for her life. She has missed out on gymnastics, horseback riding, piano, guitar and singing lessons because of her issues. On top of that, they wish for her to be punished for not attending whatever it is they felt she should be attending--even though it was okay for them to miss because of vacation-eye roll. We could do no right with these people. She was also told because of her birth defects that she would be the type of child a mother would abort. She did not even know what abortion was until these fine Christian folks told her. She was also asked if she was going to marry a man "like her" (with birth defects, hers are internal, btw). I think they could replace the word Christian with the word Nazi and it would work.

 

I feel the reason so many are leaving the church is the pure outright meanness of Christians. I am almost fifty and I have never met nastier, more cruel, sanctimonious, eager to find fault and revel in it, gossiping EVIL excuses for humans in my life. I have thought of it the last couple of days and the people that have caused the most damage to me and mine have been "CHRISTIANS" time and time again. I am not saying on extremely rare occasions I have not come across gracious and loving ones such as my daughter's AHG troop, but I tell you at this point I would rather go to damn hell than go to heaven to hang out with such a nasty group of so-called believers.  When I am around people that do not attend church or stopped attending is because they did not feel welcomed and/or they became fed up with the drama and chaos of members.

 

 

I miss being spiritually thirsty, I miss having faith and hope in my God. I am very bitter.

 

 

 

 

[happi duck]

(hugs)

[PeachyDoodle]

My parents never attended church. They said church was for hypocrites. However they did make sure I knew the Bible. I started attending church in my late twenties, married to my second husband. We were having issues in our life and I decided to start attending church. (My DH is Baptist and attended as a boy and young man). I picked Lutheran because my great grandmother was Lutheran (she was Catholic but she disagreed with a lot that they professed and switched to Lutheran). We found a small church (lcms) and enjoyed it, even becoming baptized-my father, our children and myself and my parents even started attending. There was a problem at the church where certain elders and members did not take it kindly when the new pastor refused to allow people who were not Lutheran to take Communion (or Lutherans that could not take it for certain reasons). They forced out the pastor and the church split with some staying, some going to another church and others going to a different church. We were one of the ones that went to a different church, still lcms. It was a pretty miserable experience and between these two experiences, I saw that my parents where right and that church was full of not just sinners, but HYPOCRITES. Hypocrites that took pleasure in tearing down everyone else while exalting themselves and their chosen few.

 

This was FL, we moved to SC. Just before we moved I had given birth to our twins. Emily died and Meghan was born and survived with VACTERLS Association. We had hospice involved while I was pregnant, we knew Emily would die and possibly Meghan too. Our pastor told us that was not allowed to use hospice, we could only use him. I was blamed for the fact that only I was attending church by this point because no one else in our family wanted to attend. I also had people turn against me in the church because I was put on bedrest and could not attend including a funeral. Because of course I was suppose to endanger my life and the life of my babies to be there. Lots of other issues of again, the congregation being a bunch of hypocrites. My parents had switched to a different Lutheran lcms church too, but again, it was filled with a bunch of sniping hypocrites and they stopped attending. Shortly after we buried Emily, we moved to the Upstate of SC. Our next door neighbor was a missions pastor and we started attending his church. It went pretty well but it was (is) a HUGE church. We were not used to that. Also switching from Lutheran lcms (the children being alters and such) to a more modern church, gave the kids a shock, lol. Not that it was not a sound church. The sermons were great. We started to have some issues though with certain people that chose to judge us based on things they did not understand and we were not going to explain to them, it was not their business. We stopped attending. We then started attending a friend's church and we liked it but we could not participate in most activities because of my DH's work schedule (he was out of state during the week and would be home on weekends, and on occasion a double week, etc). Also this friend of mine who is very religious felt she could dictate my every action and if I did not do exactly as she said and did that was cause for extreme disapproval. Her husband was quite abusive to me too, he did not like my perfume (which people consistently compliment me on), or that I wore make up or that I am fat and so on. Her children were also being rude and judgmental of my daughter and myself. (This family loaned me their book by the Pearls if that gives you an idea of their philosophy), it got to the point that I was afraid to open my mouth in their presence or even dare move). They kept track of when I attended church and did not, how many lights were on in my house SERIOUSLY and other such things. Things came to a head when we had it out and we stopped attending their church. We went back to our original church and it had become even more uppity and condescending. So we just gave up. We are guilty of the sins that even Jesus could not forgive, me being too fat (18/20) and us not having money to throw around. My daughter does attend AHG and they have been a saving grace. I have not totally given up on my faith because of them and because I guess I am a glutton for punishment. They are a lovely group of gracious, loving women. My daughter did want to attend youth group and I found a church near us that is Baptist and more liberal than past churches we have attended. She does like it. We stopped attending for a bit because I have not been well but we are starting back this Wednesday (tomorrow). I am very cautious and I do not have the thirst for God like I had before...I feel nothing.  

 

My daughter had not wanted to attend for awhile either. We attended CC and my daughter has multiple birth defects. At one point she was seeing twelve specialists and had multiple surgeries on her spine, heart, anus, etc. She just got rid of her feeding tube two years ago and still wears pull-ups. We missed quite a few sessions and instead of lifting us up, we were gossiped about--why could we make it to a birthday party or to gymnastics if we could not make it to CC? Seriously? My child has missed Christmases and Thanksgivings and her birthdays being in the hospital at times fighting for her life. She has missed out on gymnastics, horseback riding, piano, guitar and singing lessons because of her issues. On top of that, they wish for her to be punished for not attending whatever it is they felt she should be attending--even though it was okay for them to miss because of vacation-eye roll. We could do no right with these people. She was also told because of her birth defects that she would be the type of child a mother would abort. She did not even know what abortion was until these fine Christian folks told her. She was also asked if she was going to marry a man "like her" (with birth defects, hers are internal, btw). I think they could replace the word Christian with the word Nazi and it would work.

 

I feel the reason so many are leaving the church is the pure outright meanness of Christians. I am almost fifty and I have never met nastier, more cruel, sanctimonious, eager to find fault and revel in it, gossiping EVIL excuses for humans in my life. I have thought of it the last couple of days and the people that have caused the most damage to me and mine have been "CHRISTIANS" time and time again. I am not saying on extremely rare occasions I have not come across gracious and loving ones such as my daughter's AHG troop, but I tell you at this point I would rather go to damn hell than go to heaven to hang out with such a nasty group of so-called believers.  When I am around people that do not attend church or stopped attending is because they did not feel welcomed and/or they became fed up with the drama and chaos of members.

 

 

I miss being spiritually thirsty, I miss having faith and hope in my God. I am very bitter.

 

I'm sorry that you have been hurt so badly. No one should ever have treated your family that way. ((hugs))

 

 

[TianXiaXueXiao]

Tell me how you picked a local church...after you tell me which category you fit into. I think my categories cover everyone who hasn't been at the same church their whole adult lives that their parent(s) picked or that their denomination assigned/strongly recommended. But if not, tell me about that too.

 

Category A

 

1. You became a Christian when you were not living with your parent(s).

2. You didn't join the church your parent(s) attended (whether you were living with them or not) or your parents weren't church goers.

3. You're part of a wing of Christianity that doesn't assign/strongly recommend a local church based on your home address.

 

How did you hear about that very first church you chose to attend?  What specifically were you looking for in a church at that time? Was there a tie breaker of some kind that made you choose one church over another that was a contender? What was that tie breaker? Roughly how many years ago was that? What have you looked for in churches since then?

 

Category B

 

1. You became a Christian while you were living with your parent(s) and attended your parent(s) church then at some point you attended a different church than your parent(s).

2. You're part of a wing of Christianity that doesn't assign/strongly recommend a local church based on your home address.

 

How did you hear about the churches you chose to attend when it was up to you?  What specifically were you and your spouse and kids looking for in a church?  Were there any tie breakers that have made you choose some churches over other contenders? Roughly how many years ago did you choose each church?

 

I'm asking because I suspect there are some ideas for outreach being thrown around my church these days that are more about what the people already attending are looking for with little to no thought of what someone who isn't here yet might want.  So, I thought I'd just ask a wide range of people who have BTDT how finding a church worked for them and their thoughts on the process. No judgement.  No assumptions. I want to understand what others think about this.

 

Add any thoughts you have about outreach to the unchurched (Christian and non-Christian) because I really want to learn from as many different perspectives as I can on this.  I have very thick skin and I'm asking for personal experiences, personal opinions and honest feedback, so please don't be thin skinned when reading other peoples' responses and replying to them. If it's potentially upsetting to hear that some posters don't like how some churches do things and you like how those churches do it or if you're bothered that some posters like the way some churches do things and you don't like how those churches do things just bow out now and skip this thread entirely. I don't want people getting this thread shut down.

 

Thanks.

 

I am going to include a lot of background because it is helpful to see how we came to become a part our church which was the result of decades of church-hopping. I became a Christian at age 38. Before I was baptized into the Eastern Orthodox Church, I had been "spiritual but not religious" for most of my life. I was raised in a non-mainstream, non-Trinitarian, Gnostic religion that used the word "Christian" but was not Christian by definition since there was no teaching that Jesus Christ was truly the Incarnate Son of God. In that religion, Jesus Christ was merely a man who had attained enlightenment and had therefore become the model for the "perfect man." For the majority of my life, I accepted this as actual Gospel Truth. I understood myself to be a Christian and when I became an adult, I rejected the religion I had grown up in but I still believed that I had been taught the truth; I just didn't abide by the institution of the religion and it's rules, stewardship, and governance.  

 

As an adult I visited many protestant and non-denominational churches, and quickly discovered that they all had a completely different understanding about Jesus Christ than what I embraced, so I jumped around from church to church until I could find one that either had the truth or would accept me despite the fact that I held a very different fundamental understanding. Daoism was the closest belief system 

to what I believed about the world and the natural order, so I really embraced it as my core belief, but I didn't like leaving out Jesus, so my search for a church continued. After years of this church-hopping, I had finally arrived at the Quakers or Religious Society of Friends and finally felt that I could belong to a religion. The problem was that there was little if any talk about God or prayer in the fellowship hours after the mostly silent meetings. There was no formation for young souls and no formation for older adults as the local Friends Meeting in our town was solely devoted to advocacy for human rights and social change. After sticking around for a while and hoping to get something more spiritual from the meetings, I finally concluded that we were joining a club and not a spiritual body. I mean no offense to any Friends on the boards, as I am sure there are differences among the congregations.

 

Not long after our Quaker encounters, we were mystically led (I have shared this story elsewhere on the boards and don't want to take up the time here) to attend an evening prayer service (known as Vespers) at the only Orthodox Church in town which I had happened to live next door to. As soon as I entered the Church, I knew I had finally found a true spiritual home. I was so drawn to the church that I no longer wished for a church that accepted my beliefs about Jesus Christ, but instead desired to understand why my understand was faulty and to change it. It was a radical shift to discard all of my previously held beliefs and to embrace a completely different theology that included not only the divinity of Jesus Christ, but the worship of the Holy Trinity, and the respect and veneration of Mary the Mother of God.

 

A couple years after our baptism, we moved to a different state and to a region that had not just one, but many canonical local Orthodox churches. When we asked our former priest how to go about finding a new parish, his advice was much like what Patty Joanna shared above. He told us to find the smallest mission church, no matter the distance from our home, and dedicate our selves to that church so that we grow in the faith and service of others in humility. We struggled with this advice at first, but after being in the same small church for the last two years, there is really no other place to be. It is our community even though we drive 45 minutes to 1.5 hours one way depending on traffic and cross the state border to participate in the life of our beloved church!

 

 

[G5052]

I rarely attended church growing up, although I would be considered Protestant.

 

In college I became more aware of doctrine, and that became the priority.

 

In middle age, I'm softening on that stance. The church we go to now is not one where I feel close to the people there despite being there for over a decade. Some issues have developed over the years. Some drive a long distance to go there, and there isn't much interaction outside of Sunday.It's also not a church that is friendly to working women like myself, and the preaching is often mediocre. There's zero outreach to the community. DH hasn't been able to attend consistently in years, but he's not supportive of looking elsewhere. He grew up in this type of church, and the belief is that you attend the local one unless there are very, very serious problems.

 

I've pretty much resigned myself to staying and being a "Sunday only" member in terms of our involvement. It's just not a spiritually encouraging place for me. It's OK, but it's not ideal.

 

Frankly my friends who go to other churches are closer to me in terms of spiritual concern and fellowship, and I know that there are churches in the area with better preaching. After being in a summer study with a local community group, I'm looking forward to doing more with them in the fall. I feel much more encouraged and challenged there than I do at our church.

 

So I would say that personal involvement and connections are important too. That's been sadly missing for years with our church. I think that's very unhealthy. Solid preaching that reaches the heart is also important. Many of the messages I hear at my church are more intellectual exercises than something that moves people.

 

We'll see over time. It's something I pray about on nearly a daily basis.

[KayT]

My parents never attended church. They said church was for hypocrites. However they did make sure I knew the Bible. I started attending church in my late twenties, married to my second husband. We were having issues in our life and I decided to start attending church. (My DH is Baptist and attended as a boy and young man). I picked Lutheran because my great grandmother was Lutheran (she was Catholic but she disagreed with a lot that they professed and switched to Lutheran). We found a small church (lcms) and enjoyed it, even becoming baptized-my father, our children and myself and my parents even started attending. There was a problem at the church where certain elders and members did not take it kindly when the new pastor refused to allow people who were not Lutheran to take Communion (or Lutherans that could not take it for certain reasons). They forced out the pastor and the church split with some staying, some going to another church and others going to a different church. We were one of the ones that went to a different church, still lcms. It was a pretty miserable experience and between these two experiences, I saw that my parents where right and that church was full of not just sinners, but HYPOCRITES. Hypocrites that took pleasure in tearing down everyone else while exalting themselves and their chosen few.

 

This was FL, we moved to SC. Just before we moved I had given birth to our twins. Emily died and Meghan was born and survived with VACTERLS Association. We had hospice involved while I was pregnant, we knew Emily would die and possibly Meghan too. Our pastor told us that was not allowed to use hospice, we could only use him. I was blamed for the fact that only I was attending church by this point because no one else in our family wanted to attend. I also had people turn against me in the church because I was put on bedrest and could not attend including a funeral. Because of course I was suppose to endanger my life and the life of my babies to be there. Lots of other issues of again, the congregation being a bunch of hypocrites. My parents had switched to a different Lutheran lcms church too, but again, it was filled with a bunch of sniping hypocrites and they stopped attending. Shortly after we buried Emily, we moved to the Upstate of SC. Our next door neighbor was a missions pastor and we started attending his church. It went pretty well but it was (is) a HUGE church. We were not used to that. Also switching from Lutheran lcms (the children being alters and such) to a more modern church, gave the kids a shock, lol. Not that it was not a sound church. The sermons were great. We started to have some issues though with certain people that chose to judge us based on things they did not understand and we were not going to explain to them, it was not their business. We stopped attending. We then started attending a friend's church and we liked it but we could not participate in most activities because of my DH's work schedule (he was out of state during the week and would be home on weekends, and on occasion a double week, etc). Also this friend of mine who is very religious felt she could dictate my every action and if I did not do exactly as she said and did that was cause for extreme disapproval. Her husband was quite abusive to me too, he did not like my perfume (which people consistently compliment me on), or that I wore make up or that I am fat and so on. Her children were also being rude and judgmental of my daughter and myself. (This family loaned me their book by the Pearls if that gives you an idea of their philosophy), it got to the point that I was afraid to open my mouth in their presence or even dare move). They kept track of when I attended church and did not, how many lights were on in my house SERIOUSLY and other such things. Things came to a head when we had it out and we stopped attending their church. We went back to our original church and it had become even more uppity and condescending. So we just gave up. We are guilty of the sins that even Jesus could not forgive, me being too fat (18/20) and us not having money to throw around. My daughter does attend AHG and they have been a saving grace. I have not totally given up on my faith because of them and because I guess I am a glutton for punishment. They are a lovely group of gracious, loving women. My daughter did want to attend youth group and I found a church near us that is Baptist and more liberal than past churches we have attended. She does like it. We stopped attending for a bit because I have not been well but we are starting back this Wednesday (tomorrow). I am very cautious and I do not have the thirst for God like I had before...I feel nothing.  

 

My daughter had not wanted to attend for awhile either. We attended CC and my daughter has multiple birth defects. At one point she was seeing twelve specialists and had multiple surgeries on her spine, heart, anus, etc. She just got rid of her feeding tube two years ago and still wears pull-ups. We missed quite a few sessions and instead of lifting us up, we were gossiped about--why could we make it to a birthday party or to gymnastics if we could not make it to CC? Seriously? My child has missed Christmases and Thanksgivings and her birthdays being in the hospital at times fighting for her life. She has missed out on gymnastics, horseback riding, piano, guitar and singing lessons because of her issues. On top of that, they wish for her to be punished for not attending whatever it is they felt she should be attending--even though it was okay for them to miss because of vacation-eye roll. We could do no right with these people. She was also told because of her birth defects that she would be the type of child a mother would abort. She did not even know what abortion was until these fine Christian folks told her. She was also asked if she was going to marry a man "like her" (with birth defects, hers are internal, btw). I think they could replace the word Christian with the word Nazi and it would work.

 

I feel the reason so many are leaving the church is the pure outright meanness of Christians. I am almost fifty and I have never met nastier, more cruel, sanctimonious, eager to find fault and revel in it, gossiping EVIL excuses for humans in my life. I have thought of it the last couple of days and the people that have caused the most damage to me and mine have been "CHRISTIANS" time and time again. I am not saying on extremely rare occasions I have not come across gracious and loving ones such as my daughter's AHG troop, but I tell you at this point I would rather go to damn hell than go to heaven to hang out with such a nasty group of so-called believers.  When I am around people that do not attend church or stopped attending is because they did not feel welcomed and/or they became fed up with the drama and chaos of members.

 

 

I miss being spiritually thirsty, I miss having faith and hope in my God. I am very bitter.

 

I love you meghansmom. (( hugs)) I'm in my 50's and feel the same as you do about some people in the church.

 

It's not suppose to be this way.

[G5052]

My p Also this friend of mine who is very religious felt she could dictate my every action and if I did not do exactly as she said and did that was cause for extreme disapproval. Her husband was quite abusive to me too, he did not like my perfume (which people consistently compliment me on), or that I wore make up or that I am fat and so on. Her children were also being rude and judgmental of my daughter and myself. (This family loaned me their book by the Pearls if that gives you an idea of their philosophy), it got to the point that I was afraid to open my mouth in their presence or even dare move). They kept track of when I attended church and did not, how many lights were on in my house SERIOUSLY and other such things. Things came to a head when we had it out and we stopped attending their church. We went back to our original church and it had become even more uppity and condescending. So we just gave up. We are guilty of the sins that even Jesus could not forgive, me being too fat (18/20) and us not having money to throw around. My daughter does attend AHG and they have been a saving grace. I have not totally given up on my faith because of them and because I guess I am a glutton for punishment. They are a lovely group of gracious, loving women. My daughter did want to attend youth group and I found a church near us that is Baptist and more liberal than past churches we have attended. She does like it. We stopped attending for a bit because I have not been well but we are starting back this Wednesday (tomorrow). I am very cautious and I do not have the thirst for God like I had before...I feel nothing.  

 

My daughter had not wanted to attend for awhile either. We attended CC and my daughter has multiple birth defects. At one point she was seeing twelve specialists and had multiple surgeries on her spine, heart, anus, etc. She just got rid of her feeding tube two years ago and still wears pull-ups. We missed quite a few sessions and instead of lifting us up, we were gossiped about--why could we make it to a birthday party or to gymnastics if we could not make it to CC? Seriously? My child has missed Christmases and Thanksgivings and her birthdays being in the hospital at times fighting for her life. She has missed out on gymnastics, horseback riding, piano, guitar and singing lessons because of her issues. On top of that, they wish for her to be punished for not attending whatever it is they felt she should be attending--even though it was okay for them to miss because of vacation-eye roll. We could do no right with these people. She was also told because of her birth defects that she would be the type of child a mother would abort. She did not even know what abortion was until these fine Christian folks told her. She was also asked if she was going to marry a man "like her" (with birth defects, hers are internal, btw). I think they could replace the word Christian with the word Nazi and it would work.

 

I feel the reason so many are leaving the church is the pure outright meanness of Christians. I am almost fifty and I have never met nastier, more cruel, sanctimonious, eager to find fault and revel in it, gossiping EVIL excuses for humans in my life. I have thought of it the last couple of days and the people that have caused the most damage to me and mine have been "CHRISTIANS" time and time again. I am not saying on extremely rare occasions I have not come across gracious and loving ones such as my daughter's AHG troop, but I tell you at this point I would rather go to damn hell than go to heaven to hang out with such a nasty group of so-called believers.  When I am around people that do not attend church or stopped attending is because they did not feel welcomed and/or they became fed up with the drama and chaos of members.

 

 

I miss being spiritually thirsty, I miss having faith and hope in my God. I am very bitter.

 

I know what you mean. DH is disabled and has horrific medical problems. People in our church have blamed me to my face. They've also got on my case about my work (which pays the medical bills BTW), and how my role in the family is distorted because I've had to take on so much of what is traditionally handled by husbands. It's as if we perpetually need to be "fixed" and have done things wrong. Over a decade of that, and I'm just weary of it.

 

Don't give up on God. If it takes a parachurch organization like AHG, so be it. My view of the church has indeed changed. It's not always the refuge it should be, and if it's not, you need to find other places to fellowship.

[ktgrok]

G5052 and Meghan's mom, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine a church acting like that. Please know, not all churches think women are sinning for working, or that disabilities should be ignored in order to attend church, or any of that. I'm sick reading it. I'm so, so sorry. None of the churches I've attended would have that kind of culture, that I know of. Of course, the wouldn't meet your need doctrinally I'm pretty sure, but my goodness. I'm just sick reading this. Hugs. and love..so much love. 

[HS Mom in NC]

I'm shocked and horrified at some of the bad church experiences here. I'm so sorry anyone has ever had to deal with that those kinds of sinful attitudes and behaviors in a church.

[mumto2]

More B than A ;)

 

Dh and I settled on being Presbyterian (his family) when we got married. I wanted to get married in the church we would attend for the rest of our lives and I didn't care for the local Methodist (my family). Since you are looking at the deciding factors it was partly to do with church members that I already knew and partly because the church secretary was a pain. We wanted to join and plan to have our wedding in their church. I was told a more established (longer) member could bump my wedding off the church schedule anytime even after we were officially members. I had gone to a Methodist college and was transferring me. Should be easy. We were more than a year before the big day. Easy choice, nicer human beings in general across that street. Welcomed us and our wedding with open arms. Big congregation but always treated us as individuals.

 

The living in one town forever didn't work but we tried to stay Presbyterian after our big move which wasn't easy. After driving 100 miles each way for a few years we became open to change, exhaustion set in and local sounded fabulous. Will be honest and say I loved that congregation. Many are still good friends.

 

I was back to the Metodist or something else question. More kids at the C of E which put it ahead for our family. We looked at doctrine and how it was applied in our specific local church. Was it close enough? We also cared about how our children would be treated. My kids wanted to listen to the sermon not be sent off to Sunday School. They came from a 45 minute for all culture so considered C of E to be really short and they like sermons. Would people and the kids they already knew respect their wishes? Btw, everyone has been great. They were invited discreetly for awhile which was nice. Dh and I didn't care either way. So nice that they sere welcome.

 

Would we be welcome at different somewhat closed activities, things like arranging flowers that the same people had been part of for decades. It's worked out fine. Dd actually is a full member of the flower team and does an arrangement most weeks. The people on the team have had a great time sorking with her and she is really good at what she does thanks to their experience.

 

 

I was fortunate that one of the Readers was a long time friend who I could voice my concerns to. She started including little things we asked about in the services like page numbers. The Book of Common Prayer is hard to follow if you weren't raised with it. She helped smooth our way more than we will probably ever know. We did an every other week thing for months trying to decide. It's worked well. Happy with my change to local. Naturally a Presbyterian church has opened in a nearby big town. We attend occasionally. I love the local community feel now.

[MeghansMom]

I love you meghansmom. (( hugs)) I'm in my 50's and feel the same as you do about some people in the church.

 

It's not suppose to be this way.

 

 

Thank you KayT. Hugs to you and thank you. 

 

I know what you mean. DH is disabled and has horrific medical problems. People in our church have blamed me to my face. They've also got on my case about my work (which pays the medical bills BTW), and how my role in the family is distorted because I've had to take on so much of what is traditionally handled by husbands. It's as if we perpetually need to be "fixed" and have done things wrong. Over a decade of that, and I'm just weary of it.

 

Don't give up on God. If it takes a parachurch organization like AHG, so be it. My view of the church has indeed changed. It's not always the refuge it should be, and if it's not, you need to find other places to fellowship.

 

That is what I am hoping for this new church. We were made to feel welcome and they are a more accepting and open church. I did pray for things to go well the first night we attended and when we were parking a single elderly man was parking too and he welcomed us, showed us where to go and introduced us to several people including the pastor and we enjoyed the sermon. From what I understand, the music minister is award winning, Dove awards? The youth group was pretty warm and accepting of Meghan too. We shall see. 

 

G5052 and Meghan's mom, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine a church acting like that. Please know, not all churches think women are sinning for working, or that disabilities should be ignored in order to attend church, or any of that. I'm sick reading it. I'm so, so sorry. None of the churches I've attended would have that kind of culture, that I know of. Of course, the wouldn't meet your need doctrinally I'm pretty sure, but my goodness. I'm just sick reading this. Hugs. and love..so much love. 

 

 

Thank you ktgrok. I am very close to being an atheist, I struggle with it a lot. 

I'm shocked and horrified at some of the bad church experiences here. I'm so sorry anyone has ever had to deal with that those kinds of sinful attitudes and behaviors in a church.

 

I could say a lot more of the experiences I have encountered, however I don't really want to dwell on all of the pain from it. I am hoping this new church will be a church family for us.

[Retired]

My parents never attended church. They said church was for hypocrites. However they did make sure I knew the Bible. I started attending church in my late twenties, married to my second husband. We were having issues in our life and I decided to start attending church. (My DH is Baptist and attended as a boy and young man). I picked Lutheran because my great grandmother was Lutheran (she was Catholic but she disagreed with a lot that they professed and switched to Lutheran). We found a small church (lcms) and enjoyed it, even becoming baptized-my father, our children and myself and my parents even started attending. There was a problem at the church where certain elders and members did not take it kindly when the new pastor refused to allow people who were not Lutheran to take Communion (or Lutherans that could not take it for certain reasons). They forced out the pastor and the church split with some staying, some going to another church and others going to a different church. We were one of the ones that went to a different church, still lcms. It was a pretty miserable experience and between these two experiences, I saw that my parents where right and that church was full of not just sinners, but HYPOCRITES. Hypocrites that took pleasure in tearing down everyone else while exalting themselves and their chosen few.

 

This was FL, we moved to SC. Just before we moved I had given birth to our twins. Emily died and Meghan was born and survived with VACTERLS Association. We had hospice involved while I was pregnant, we knew Emily would die and possibly Meghan too. Our pastor told us that was not allowed to use hospice, we could only use him. I was blamed for the fact that only I was attending church by this point because no one else in our family wanted to attend. I also had people turn against me in the church because I was put on bedrest and could not attend including a funeral. Because of course I was suppose to endanger my life and the life of my babies to be there. Lots of other issues of again, the congregation being a bunch of hypocrites. My parents had switched to a different Lutheran lcms church too, but again, it was filled with a bunch of sniping hypocrites and they stopped attending. Shortly after we buried Emily, we moved to the Upstate of SC. Our next door neighbor was a missions pastor and we started attending his church. It went pretty well but it was (is) a HUGE church. We were not used to that. Also switching from Lutheran lcms (the children being alters and such) to a more modern church, gave the kids a shock, lol. Not that it was not a sound church. The sermons were great. We started to have some issues though with certain people that chose to judge us based on things they did not understand and we were not going to explain to them, it was not their business. We stopped attending. We then started attending a friend's church and we liked it but we could not participate in most activities because of my DH's work schedule (he was out of state during the week and would be home on weekends, and on occasion a double week, etc). Also this friend of mine who is very religious felt she could dictate my every action and if I did not do exactly as she said and did that was cause for extreme disapproval. Her husband was quite abusive to me too, he did not like my perfume (which people consistently compliment me on), or that I wore make up or that I am fat and so on. Her children were also being rude and judgmental of my daughter and myself. (This family loaned me their book by the Pearls if that gives you an idea of their philosophy), it got to the point that I was afraid to open my mouth in their presence or even dare move). They kept track of when I attended church and did not, how many lights were on in my house SERIOUSLY and other such things. Things came to a head when we had it out and we stopped attending their church. We went back to our original church and it had become even more uppity and condescending. So we just gave up. We are guilty of the sins that even Jesus could not forgive, me being too fat (18/20) and us not having money to throw around. My daughter does attend AHG and they have been a saving grace. I have not totally given up on my faith because of them and because I guess I am a glutton for punishment. They are a lovely group of gracious, loving women. My daughter did want to attend youth group and I found a church near us that is Baptist and more liberal than past churches we have attended. She does like it. We stopped attending for a bit because I have not been well but we are starting back this Wednesday (tomorrow). I am very cautious and I do not have the thirst for God like I had before...I feel nothing.  

 

My daughter had not wanted to attend for awhile either. We attended CC and my daughter has multiple birth defects. At one point she was seeing twelve specialists and had multiple surgeries on her spine, heart, anus, etc. She just got rid of her feeding tube two years ago and still wears pull-ups. We missed quite a few sessions and instead of lifting us up, we were gossiped about--why could we make it to a birthday party or to gymnastics if we could not make it to CC? Seriously? My child has missed Christmases and Thanksgivings and her birthdays being in the hospital at times fighting for her life. She has missed out on gymnastics, horseback riding, piano, guitar and singing lessons because of her issues. On top of that, they wish for her to be punished for not attending whatever it is they felt she should be attending--even though it was okay for them to miss because of vacation-eye roll. We could do no right with these people. She was also told because of her birth defects that she would be the type of child a mother would abort. She did not even know what abortion was until these fine Christian folks told her. She was also asked if she was going to marry a man "like her" (with birth defects, hers are internal, btw). I think they could replace the word Christian with the word Nazi and it would work.

 

I feel the reason so many are leaving the church is the pure outright meanness of Christians. I am almost fifty and I have never met nastier, more cruel, sanctimonious, eager to find fault and revel in it, gossiping EVIL excuses for humans in my life. I have thought of it the last couple of days and the people that have caused the most damage to me and mine have been "CHRISTIANS" time and time again. I am not saying on extremely rare occasions I have not come across gracious and loving ones such as my daughter's AHG troop, but I tell you at this point I would rather go to damn hell than go to heaven to hang out with such a nasty group of so-called believers.  When I am around people that do not attend church or stopped attending is because they did not feel welcomed and/or they became fed up with the drama and chaos of members.

 

 

I miss being spiritually thirsty, I miss having faith and hope in my God. I am very bitter.

 

This post breaks my heart because  I love Jesus and believe the church should be like Jesus.  The church is suppose to be unconditional love and support.   I've had my share of meeting evil and ugliness in churches.  I'm sure after so many years on this board I've posted about my encounter of a bunch of lady bullies that accused and insulted me during a bible study. It took me several years before I tried another church. Then I found another church and we loved the service and ministry but come to find out that members of the church thought the minister was being to friendly with me.  I'm married but my dh never attended church with me.  It was me and my boys.  He really was giving me helpful spiritual counseling  regarding my marriage and raising children   We would have our conversation in front of everyone so it wasn't like we were in close office or something  But church gossip got back to his wife and anyway.  I left cause the minister was doing nothing wrong it was just a bunch of evil gossiping women again.  I didn't want his ministry hurt.

 

I just want you know this lady loves you and feels your pain.   Jesus loves you and your family and I really pray that you can find a true Christian church family.

[Bluegoat]

I don't know what catagory I am in.  I went to church mostly with my grandparents.  I am in a different denomination that I chose as an adult, but I am probably not what you'd call a mainstream member - I am very involved but some in my denomination would say I am a traditionalist.

 

My denomination does tend to want people to attend the most local parish, though many don't. I don't, though I believe in that in principle as a good practice.  I chose my parish because I considered it to be on the one hand doctrinally orthodox, in a thinking way, but it also is very open to people, and there is real discipleship.  And also something that might be considered aethetics though I think it is more - they don't go in for gimmicky things like homilies that include stunts and cheesy music.  There is a sense that art is one way of connecting people to the Divine life, and so needs to be done with some care and even dignity.  And it's a very active parish in community outreach as well.

 

I do think though, that the idea of doing things in the worship of the parish specifically to attract new people, can be very fraught.  It isn't always wrong, but there needs to be real care about thinking what the principles you are trying to work from are.  And feeding the spirituality of the current parishioners is at least as important as those who are not yet there and may never show up.  I think people sense when things are done mainly to attract new people.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Bluegoat

[G5052]

Thank you ktgrok. I am very close to being an atheist, I struggle with it a lot. 

 

I could say a lot more of the experiences I have encountered, however I don't really want to dwell on all of the pain from it. I am hoping this new church will be a church family for us.

 

I understand. This last school year was so bad between my work load, other things that were going on, and a crises our church went through, I pretty much went through the motions.

 

It's better overall now, but there still are issues at my church. I got buttonholed Sunday and grilled about my husband again -- why he's not there, why I'm working, etc. etc. Certain people just perpetually think they can fix things (they can't), and it comes across very judgmental.

[HS Mom in NC]

Thank you all for your feedback.  It's good to have different perspective and experiences to learn from.

[Xahm]

We're looking right now. My husband both grew up as conservative presbyterians in the same small denomination. The congregations we grew up in are too far for us to be more than Sunday members and the local congregation has a crazy pastor who believes charity is bad but insists on an absolutely literal interpretation of all scripture that doesn't involve money (which was super-fun during the 9 month long sermon series on Revelation).

As we are looking we are trying to find somewhere that will both challenge us and accept us. We want a place where our kids can learn and grow and we can grow through worship and service.

We don't really want to attend a mega church, which our area is full of. So we are visiting the medium size churches in our radius we can travel willingly. So far it's been pretty hard. If it were just my husband and I we could just pick one and be done, but I know it is really hard on kids when parents and church disagree about things. Of course we would explain about things, but I know I didn't tell my parents everything my Sunday school teachers told me because I got tired of them grumbling about people I liked.

[lllll]

nm

Edited July 25, 2016 by ~ d9n

[MolleenCarie]

Category B.

 

Our first tour in NC we went to the first one we tried. We tried it bc it was down the road a little way and we came back bc a family had us for lunch and we felt welcomed. We liked the preacher and congregation. We were there together only seven months.

 

While stationed in Hawaii we sporadically visited and attended services, choosing the base chapel bc our littles were welcome in the service (the two off base churches we tried both made me feel unwelcome bc of my baby or toddlers) and it was within walking distance to our house. We were there three years.

 

In Oklahoma we went to our friends' church, which caused us to become members of a different flavor of Baptist. We tried a few other places, but we went where we knew people. We were there three years.

 

Second time in NC I really wanted to get back to our Southern Baptist roots and we visited one for a few months, really liked it and the congregation, but it was a longer drive and our friends had moved to NC a year prior so we felt pulled to their church again. We were there three years.

 

Here in Okinawa we visited the church which was the type of Baptist as our last two, but it just didn't sit right. I'm glad we stepped out of our comfort zone to attend our current church home (it is much bigger than we were used to and the music was an adjustment). We will leave in two years, bringing us to a total of six years her. We love it here. Koza is our home, our family. It is special.

 

The Lord has grown us in each place and I'm grateful.

 

Some ideas for reaching visitors: our pastor makes sure we only reach 80% capacity per service. We have added services or been asked to shift to a less full service time to allow room for visitors. Two years ago we opened a second campus. He says if people come and can't find parking, seating, or room in the nursery for their child, they won't come back. He started a first impressions team to make sure every person who walks through the door is greeted at least three times before being seated, and to help answer questions and find classrooms, etc. Coffee is a big thing for him, too.

 

Our big outreaches are focused on reaching the Japanese and the American military community and are linked to holidays.

 

Getting people to come isn't the challenge we have, as we are the largest church on this tiny island, it's discipling and growing those that do. We've added three new full-time pastors / ministers and two volunteer ministers in the four years we've been here to help with that. We have community groups to make a big church feel small, and mission trips and ministries where people can serve. Last year we did Experiencing God as a church. It went over well and many people grew in their faith.

[ktgrok]

I realize I didn't say anything about reaching the unchurched/visitors/etc. I don't think it should be a huge push. But, I think there are small things that can be done to make visitors more welcome, when they do come. Things like simply welcoming them. Now, a LOT of people don't want to be singled out, so I don't like that. Iv'e been to churches where they called to try to have the minster come over, or people showed up at my doorstep with food, etc. But at the very least, a general welcome is nice. My priest always says something like "I'd like to welcome everyone, and in a special way, welcome those who are new here to Annunciation, or are visiting us for other faith backgrounds or other places." He also makes sure to let them know before communion what to do, if they aren't Catholic, so they aren't worrying about what to do or feeling anxious. And biggest of all, all the words to the prayers, songs, etc are projected onto the wall of the church, so people can follow along. That made my non Catholic DH feel much more comfortable. 

[Katy]

Category A.  Took a denominational match test online and got a couple close matches.  Visited churches that are close in those denominations, joined the one that felt like home & which had appropriate small groups which led to close friends.

 

Now are seriously considering switching from a protestant church to an Eastern Orthodox one.  It doesn't feel like home at all, but still feels exciting.

[NoseInABook]

I'm in category A. Honestly, I was just trying various churches and one day I was sitting in the middle of a small UMC when I felt this strong prompting to get up, GO, and go to this church that I'd randomly ended up in for one service a few years earlier. I hadn't even thought of them while doing my search for a local church. I got into my car, went, "I think they start at 11:30..." and it was 11:15am. So, I scooted my way there and stayed for 8 years. We're looking for another place as we feel God shifting us elsewhere but haven't found that place yet.

[G5052]

 

So I gave up on finding a church.  About that time I prayed for someone to teach me and the kids.  Dh wasn't interested in 'leading his household' in any way, shape, or form.  So immediately after I prayed, someone on these boards posted about their pastor out in California.  I began getting his tapes and the kids and I listened to them every day while we ate our lunch.  At that point, I also realized my dh was not, and never had been, a Christian.  I also discovered J. Vernon McGee's broadcasts one night as I was randomly playing with my radio on the AM stations, of all things.  His accent caught my ear because he sounded just like my grandfather.  So we added him to our daily schedule.  We listened to these 2 preachers from 2000 on, and continue listening today.  All 5 of our hs'ed dc are Christians because of these 2 men.

 

One thing I have come to believe is a tie-breaker for me in attending a church is church discipline.  The ONLY church I've ever even heard of which practices church discipline as outlined in the New Testament is the California church in the above paragraph.  I think my parents would have stayed in the church we grew up in had that church dealt with the problems via church discipline.  But not a single church we visited practiced church discipline, along with actual Bible-based teaching.  Well, there was one.  It was a Russian Baptist church one of my dd's wanted to attend to help her with her Russian.  I only wish I could have understood Russian, and the Russian people.  Dd said I apparently made some major social blunders, clueless as I was about their culture.  But they definitely practiced church discipline as laid out in the Bible.  And it was a small, but strong, church.

 

This doesn't quite follow the OP's intent, but we love J. Vernon McGee. I have his sermons on CD. He reminds me so much of my FIL who was a travelling preacher. My FIL died 16 y.o. ago, and I constantly miss him. I used to call him periodically just to get his thinking on things, and he wrote me nearly every week. The last letter I have from him is a treasure.

 

Active, thoughtful leadership is indeed another issue. Ours is not. Enough said.