On Finding A Church

For the last six months, following a house move, I've been trying to find a church to settle in, to call home. This has proved as difficult as anticipated.

Once before I tried to find a new church, having spent about thirteen years in the same one, most of that time as a ministry leader. Unfortunately, while that particular church had excellent teaching and great fellowship, it did not have the sort of accountability that all leadership needs, and I ended up choosing to leave.

I then spent at least a year trying to find the church I had just left.

I settled in a church which was really quite the opposite (within the same theological tradition, to a point), thinking this would be what I was looking for. It wasn't. Eventually I arrived at a church where both the support and accountability was excellent. You have to compromise somewhere, but the teaching was great - I can't compromise there.

This time it is much worse. As unknown people in a strange and yet familiar land, we need fellowship. Badly. But fellowship and teaching seem to be unaquainted here. You can get excellent teaching, or great fellowship in our area, but not, it seems, both. One church is so unfriendly we have visited four times without anyone coming to speak to us. Another offers outstanding fellowship for the over 50s (and great teaching). But no-one our age. And again, right now it's the fellowship that matters.

Yet another gives you rock-concert-style services. But no-one speaks to you.

A surprising number of churches in our area offer 'Apostolic leadership' whatever that means. Direct decendants of Peter? Paul? Apostolic authority? Does that mean they can open to Rev 22 and just keep writing? An open canon? I've heard some of them preach and I'm really not sure I'd vote for that...

It's depressing being depressed about church on a Sunday morning.

Church isn't perfect, of course not. The old cliche goes if it was perfect you shouldn't join cos you'd spoil it - and the cliche is true. But it shouldn't be hard to find a friendly church with people your own age where the Bible is faithfully taught, should it?