How to Find a Good Church

H O W T O F I N D A G O O D C H U R C H
ALMOST 25 QUESTIONS THAT WILL SAVE YOU A LOT OF SUNDAYS
BY TODD FRIEL

Looking for a good church? Join the club. Church-shopping can be a long and painful
process. To shorten your search, call the pastor of the church before you visit and ask the following questions. This might save you a lot of Sundays.

1. What is man's biggest problem?Seeker sensitive and felt-needs churches focus on man’s hurts and problems. The Bible
says that man’s biggest problem is sin.
2. What must a man do to inherit eternal life?Repent and trust is the Biblical answer. If the word “repent” is never used, say, “Thank you.”
3. How do you deliver the salvation message?Ask the pastor to describe specifically what he says. Does he encourage people to
simply say a prayer? Does he tell people to ask Jesus into their hearts? The salvation
message should include: God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness, God’s response (hell),
God’s kindness (Jesus on the cross), man’s response (repentance and faith).
4. How hard is it to become a Christian?
The “formula” is simple, doing it is not. It is not easy to believe.
5. How often do you talk about sin, righteousness and judgment?Balance is key. This should not be the only emphasis, but it should be a regular
emphasis.
6. How seeker sensitive is your church?It is o.k. for a church to be “seeker aware” but seeker sensitive means that they lean
toward seekers and not the saved.
7. Who do you do church for, seekers or members?“Both” is not acceptable. Church should be done for members and the unsaved are
welcome to attend.
8. Do you dumb down your sermons?If he says yes, he is probably not trying to wean his members from milk to meat.
Answers like, “We try to make our sermons accessible to everyone” are sermons that
are not meaty.
9. What is your mixture of topical vs. expository preaching?Topical preaching is fine, but if a pastor never or rarely preaches expositionally (verse
by verse), then you are going to be learning from the pastor and not God’s Word.
10. Do your sermons emphasize theology or are they relevant?Everyone should say their sermons are relevant, what you are looking for is if they
teach theology.
11. Describe your youth programs.If fun and games is the major (and usually first) emphasis, you have a youth program
that is trying to compete with MTV.
12. Describe your evangelism programs.
Don’t just accept, “We have an evangelism committee.” Dig. Are they serious about
saving souls?
13. What church growth model do you follow?Hopefully they don’t have one. Churches should be reaching out to the lost, but
churches that are plugged into new church growth models tend to follow man’s modern
ideas rather than the Bible.
14. How much do you give to missions and the hungry?Again, this reveals the heart of the church. While most churches give to missions, many
never consider the poor.
15. Do you believe the Bible contains no errors or contradictions?No equivocation allowed here.
16. Do you believe in a literal 6 day creation?Jesus did (Matt.19:4).
17. Do you believe in a literal hell and eternal punishment?Jesus did (Matt.25).
19. When you distribute the Lord's Supper, do you emphasize the need to examine
yourself?Paul did (I Cor.11:27-32).
20. Can a person who is living in a persistent lifestyle of sin inherit eternal life?Sinners can certainly be forgiven, but practicing sinners cannot inherit eternal life (I
John 3:8,9).
21. Does your church exercise church discipline?
Paul said we should (I Cor.5).
22. Do Sunday school teachers, nursery, and youth volunteers fill out an application to answer questions about their core beliefs, or are all volunteers accepted?23.What are the essentials of the faith?
Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Salvation through faith alone, the inerrancy of Scripture.
24. Do you have a cross in your sanctuary?Many remove it because they fear it will turn off seekers. They should glory in the
cross. The cross should be the central focus of every church.

Emergent Preaching

On Wednesday evenings here at LABC we are discussing what it means to be a Biblically healthy church. Next week we will finish reviewing why Expository Preaching is Biblically healthy and so necessary for the pulpits of our churches. One glaring example of unhealthy preaching is that of Brian Mclaren, one of the leaders of the emergent church. Brian is encouraging Christians to participate in the Muslim holy month of fasting known as Ramadan. His justification for his actions is a clear misunderstanding of the Bible. Maclaren writes,

“Just as Jesus, a devout Jew, overcame religious prejudice and learned from a Syrophonecian woman and was inspired by her faith two thousand years ago (Matthew 15:21 ff, Mark 7:24 ff), we seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers today.”

I have a few questions for you to consider.

Can you see what is wrong with this line of thinking? [Try reading the texts that are cited.]

Can you provide some Biblical texts that may counter his premise? [Consider 2 Cor 6:14-15]

One of the problems with this line of thinking is that it begins with an idea or ideology and then attempts to find a text to support that concept. Expository preaching begins with the text to discover its meaning, explains the text, and allows the implications to be directly deduced from Scripture.

We will discuss this and more next Wednesday.