Question: Recently we have left our church due to problems with a relationship within the body that lasted about 9 months. Prior to us having left, we had counseled with our pastor on 2 or 3 different occasions and were not seeing any improvement with the situation. The last time we got together with him we saw change and the problem has been resolved. This all took approximately 6 months to resolve, we never saw a sense of urgency from our pastor, it was a problem that had been repeated from the same person in the past.

We have been visiting other churches now for a couple of months, and we cannot tell at all where God wants us. We come from a good, solid Bible-believing church, but there are some leadership problems that need to be addressed, and have needed to be addressed for some time. Our pastor is not good at helping people with issues, but he is an excellent teacher of the Word. The lack of nipping problems on the part of the church leadership has also caused others to become discouraged and leave, but the pastor is very well aware of all of this.

Can you please give us some guidelines or suggestions as to how we can be sure where God wants us to be? I have heard that you should only leave the body if there are doctrinal problems.

Thank you!

Charles

Answer: Dear Charles,

Some thoughts about looking for a church:

  1. Look for a strong, healthy Christ-centered church where the Bible is the final authority.
  2. Be on guard for exclusive, esoteric churches that teach that they are better, superior because of what they believe, proclaim, etc.
  3. Ask to read the church's statement of faith – ask if the church believes in salvation by Christ alone, by faith alone, and by grace alone.
  4. Look for substance, fellowship, mission, and meaning – rather than glitz, feeling, entertainment. Size is not to be equated with fidelity to the Bible and Christ.
  5. Make sure the church identifies with the body of Christ, and that it looks to the historic Christian church for its roots.

We all need two things in and from a church. We need a church that will nurture,

feed and direct us. But we also need a church home where we can find a place to be involved and make a contribution. The church is there to serve us and we should be there to serve it.

Hope this helps, and we all pray that God will lead you to just such a church!

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht