How to Find the Right Church: What Should You Look For?
If you’re trying to figure out how to find the right church, let me save you some time: you’re not going to find a perfect one.
I don’t care how good the preaching is, how friendly the people are, how strong the children’s ministry is, or how much you like the music. If you stay there long enough, you’re eventually going to discover something you don’t like. That’s because churches are made up of imperfect people. That includes the pastor, the deacons and elders, the Sunday School teachers, and the ministry leaders. And, inconveniently, it includes you and me.
So the question isn’t, “Can I find a church without problems?” You can’t. A much better question is, “Can I find a healthy church that is faithfully following Jesus?”
There’s a big difference between an imperfect church and an unhealthy one.
In the last post, we talked about church hurt and how Christians should respond when other believers hurt or disappoint us. Sometimes the answer is to extend grace, forgive, reconcile, and stay. Other times, there may be serious problems that require us to leave. The challenge is knowing the difference, and thankfully, Scripture gives us some things to look for.
Start With What the First Church Did
One of the clearest pictures of the early church comes immediately after Pentecost. Luke tells us:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”
— Acts 2:42, CSB
That’s a pretty simple description, but there’s a lot packed into it. They learned God’s truth, spent time together, shared life and meals, and prayed. Keep reading Acts 2 and you’ll also find generosity, worship, meeting needs, gathering together, and people being saved.
That doesn’t mean every church today has to look exactly like the church in Jerusalem. They didn’t have Sunday School classrooms, youth ministries, worship bands, livestreams, or church websites. Those are methods. What matters are the biblical purposes underneath those methods.
A healthy church should be teaching God’s Word, helping Christians grow, building genuine relationships between believers, praying together, caring for people, worshiping God, and taking the gospel to people who don’t know Jesus. The methods may change, but the mission doesn’t.
Does the Church Teach the Bible?
This is where I would start. You can find churches with incredible music, beautiful buildings, exciting programs, and charismatic personalities, but none of those things tells you whether you’ve found the right church.
Instead, ask a more basic question: What happens when this church opens the Bible?
Does the pastor actually explain what Scripture says, or does he begin with what he wants to say and then find a verse to support it? Does the church teach the whole counsel of God’s Word, including the parts that aren’t popular in our culture? Can Scripture correct the church, or does the church find ways to make Scripture agree with whatever it already wants to believe?
Paul told Timothy:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
— 2 Timothy 3:16–17, CSB
Notice that Scripture doesn’t just encourage us. Sometimes it teaches us we’re wrong. Sometimes it rebukes and corrects us. A healthy church allows God’s Word to do all of those things.
That doesn’t mean your pastor will interpret every difficult passage exactly the way you do. Faithful Christians can disagree about secondary issues. But you should be able to see that Scripture—not the pastor’s personality, political culture, church tradition, or popular opinion—has the final authority.
Is the Church Making Disciples?
This one matters enormously because Jesus told the church what its mission is:
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…”
— Matthew 28:19, CSB
A church can be incredibly busy without necessarily accomplishing that mission. There can be something happening every night of the week—children’s programs, dinners, concerts, Bible studies, trips, conferences, and committees—but activity alone doesn’t tell us whether disciples are being made.
The better question is whether people are becoming more like Jesus. Are new believers being taught how to follow Christ? Are mature Christians continuing to grow? Are people learning Scripture for themselves and learning how to pray, serve, share their faith, obey God, and eventually disciple other people?
We’ve talked throughout this series about the difference between simply showing up at church and actually participating in the body of Christ. A healthy church shouldn’t be satisfied with filling seats. It should be making disciples.
Look at the Leadership
The character of church leadership matters. When Paul instructed Titus about appointing leaders in the churches, he didn’t begin with charisma, education, speaking ability, or leadership experience. He talked about character.
Titus 1:5–9 describes a church leader as someone who is above reproach, self-controlled, hospitable, loves what is good, holds firmly to the faithful message, and is able to encourage others with sound teaching. That’s worth noticing because we can sometimes be impressed by the wrong things.
A pastor may be a gifted communicator and still be an unhealthy leader. He may grow a large church and still lack the character Scripture requires. So don’t just ask whether the man can preach. Look at what kind of man he is.
Is he accountable and willing to be corrected? Does he treat people with humility? Does his life generally match what he teaches? Does he point people toward Jesus, or does everything seem to revolve around him?
No pastor will answer those questions perfectly. Again, we’re looking for biblical health, not perfection. But character matters because God says it matters.
Is There Room for You?
This one is personal for me. In the last post, I told you about Wendy and me attending a church where she quickly found a place to serve, but I spent almost two years trying to get involved. Nobody was intentionally excluding me. There was simply an established group of men who had served together for years, and there never seemed to be a way for the new guy to become part of it.
That experience taught me to look for something I hadn’t thought much about before: Is there actually room for new people to become part of this church?
I’m not just asking whether someone shakes your hand at the door. I’m asking whether you can eventually move from being a visitor to becoming part of the body. Can you build relationships and serve? Can you use the gifts God has given you? Will somebody notice if you’re struggling and encourage you when you’re growing? Just as importantly, will you have opportunities to do those things for somebody else?
Paul describes the church as a body in 1 Corinthians 12. Every part has a function, and the body needs its members functioning together. If a church has the same small group doing everything year after year while everyone else watches, something is missing. A healthy church helps people become part of the body, not merely part of the audience.
How Does the Church Handle Problems?
This may tell you more about a church than what happens when everything is going well. Every church will have conflict because every church has people. The real question is what happens when that conflict comes.
Can people raise legitimate concerns without immediately being labeled troublemakers? Can leaders admit when they’re wrong? Does gossip get confronted or quietly tolerated? Is sin dealt with biblically? Is forgiveness encouraged without pretending consequences don’t exist? Are serious allegations investigated honestly, or does protecting the church’s reputation become more important than discovering the truth?
A healthy church won’t handle every situation perfectly. But there should be a willingness to submit the situation to Scripture, tell the truth, and do what’s right even when doing what’s right is uncomfortable.
Jesus Evaluates Churches Too
There’s an interesting section in Revelation that we sometimes overlook when thinking about the local church. In Revelation 2–3, Jesus sends messages to seven churches, and what we discover is that some were doing things well, some had serious problems, and some had both.
The church in Ephesus worked hard and stood against false teaching, but Jesus told them they had abandoned their first love. Pergamum remained faithful under persecution yet tolerated serious false teaching. Sardis had a reputation for being alive, but Jesus said it was dead. Laodicea thought it was doing wonderfully while Jesus described it as spiritually poor and blind.
That should get our attention because a church can have a good reputation and still have serious spiritual problems. At the same time, a church can have weaknesses without Jesus abandoning it. The important question isn’t simply what we think about a church. It’s what Jesus thinks about it.
Don’t Turn This Into a Church-Shopping Checklist
There’s a danger in an article like this. You could take everything I’ve written, make yourself a checklist, and begin grading churches: preaching gets an eight out of ten, music gets a six, children’s ministry gets a nine, friendliness gets a seven, and the parking is terrible. Then it’s off to the next church.
That’s not what I’m suggesting.
If you approach church primarily by asking, “What does this church offer me?”, you’re still approaching it as a consumer. Remember what we’ve been talking about throughout this part of the Start at Home series. You’re not simply looking for a church that can serve you. You’re looking for a church where you can grow and serve alongside other believers.
That changes the question. Instead of only asking, “What can this church do for me?” we should also be asking, “Can I faithfully become part of what God is doing here?”
Some Things Aren’t Worth Leaving Over
This is where we need some maturity because you probably won’t like everything about your church. Maybe the music isn’t your preference. Maybe the pastor occasionally preaches longer than you’d like. Maybe the building needs work, or there aren’t as many programs as another church down the road. You may even disagree with a ministry decision.
None of those things automatically means you’re in the wrong church. We need to learn the difference between biblical convictions and personal preferences.
If a church faithfully teaches God’s Word, has biblically qualified leadership, makes disciples, gives believers opportunities to serve, handles problems honestly, and is carrying out Christ’s mission, don’t underestimate what you’ve found just because something isn’t exactly the way you would do it.
You may have found a very good church filled with imperfect people. And remember, you’re one of them.
So, Are You in the Right Church?
If you’re trying to figure out how to find the right church, don’t start by searching for perfection. Look for health.
Look for a church where God’s Word has authority, Jesus is the focus, leaders demonstrate biblical character, believers are growing into disciples, people can become functioning members of the body, and the gospel is being taken beyond the walls of the building.
Then ask yourself another question: Am I willing to become part of it?
Because eventually we have to stop evaluating the church from the outside and decide whether we’re going to commit ourselves to the people inside. We’ve spent this entire section of Start at Home talking about why the church matters, why Christians need it, what Jesus designed it to do, what our role is, and what to do when church gets messy.
There’s one final question we need to answer before we leave the church portion of this series. We’ve spent a lot of time asking what the church should be doing.
What if the next step is asking what you are going to do to make your church stronger?
Continue the Start at Home Journey
This post is part of Start at Home: Why Your Kitchen Table Matters More Than Washington Ever Will, a series about becoming the kind of disciple who can make a difference where God has already placed you. If you missed any of the earlier posts, you can find the entire series at:
https://www.discipleblueprint.com/startathome
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