Evaluating a Church
Finding a good church takes prayer, time, patience, dependence on God and discernment.
Why put in all this effort? Because many organizations that call themselves churches are not true churches, rather than building up, they cause real harm. God commands us to practice discernment.
What do you look at when evaluating a church? Four things: doctrine, practice, fruit and peace.
Doctrine
The church is the pillar and support of the truth. When the church stops telling the truth, it is harmful. So the first question has to be, what is the truth according to this church?
Look at the statement of faith, listen to the sermons, read their articles, read their history.
Pay attention to what is missing (this is hard, you have to know what the bible teaches). Find out why something is omitted. A sound church will hold the scriptures to be infallible and inerrant and derive its teaching from the scriptures using a literal-grammatical-historical method of interpretation. If you don’t know the contents of what the scriptures teach, take time to study your bible.
For a systematic overview of orthodox Christian teaching, Wayne Grudem’s book, Systematic Theology, and recordings of him teaching through it are helpful.
Practice
If the church has a sound statement of faith, the next thing to consider are the practices of the church. Assuming nothing aberrant is immediately observable from regular services, look at the bylaws. This document details the leadership’s understanding of what it means to operate as a local church. See if the bylaws are being followed.
Check their organizational filings, does the paperwork match the story you know about them? Is there a long list of names who are no longer there?
The form of Church government is an important consideration, the biblical model is a plurality of elders on equal footing holding the power in conjunction with and never lording over the congregation with the congregation having final say.
Deacons should not be ruling over pastors.
If pastor turnover is high, this may indicate something wrong with the congregation.
The approach to membership is also telling, do I need to enter into a covenant with the church? What is in the covenant? How do I go about leaving on good terms? Which clauses are subjective? Who gets to interpret? What is the church discipline process like? Does it match scriptures? Is it practiced? Does the leadership get a different process in the bylaws?
Over the years, a church develops a reputation in the community. The neighbors know it, other churches know it, local pastors know it. This is a hard ask, but try to find someone who knows something about the reputation of the church and get their viewpoint.
Fruit
The fruit of a church is hard to define in concrete terms, but Christ tells us this is the one and only way to spot false teachers. The charlatan televangelists of the world are easy to see, but the effective wolves have the appearance of sound doctrine and of practice so well nailed down that you wont find flaws there, you’ll see it in the results they produce.
So, fruit, of a church, of a leadership . . .
Look at the people of the church, have them over, talk to them, pray for discernment and see what kind of spirit is expressed from them. Are they in fear or worry, is there a flow of love and joy, are they miserable, proud, sycophantic, do they gossip? Can they think for themselves or do they rely on the authority of church leadership? A sample of five families will likely be enough to get to know something of the whole church.
Look at how they show hospitality, what are their attitudes toward strangers? How do they speak of other local churches? What is their attitude towards outreach? What are they doing for missions? Do these people regularly pray together?
Stay clear of churches who have no dealings or connections with anyone outside their congregation.
Stay clear of churches that hoard a lot of cash.
Look at their worship, is there joy in their singing? What is the spirit like on a given Sunday? Cold, drab, hollow, frenetic, joyful?
If you can find them, talk to those that left the church apart from church discipline. In a fear-infected church, their names are not to be mentioned. But if you see your friends leave quietly, this is not normal, talk to them and ask the hard questions.
Peace
Say you finished your review and cannot point to anything substantial in the three criteria above. A settled and quiet confidence in your heart ought to be present to take the next step.
The scriptures say, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15). One preacher pointed out that one way Christ may make his rule known to a person in a subjective matter is by granting or withholding peace.
When you pray for his will to be done in regards to your joining a church and having started attending one, you have no peace about joining, do not join. Pray for understanding to see why there is no peace, God may yet reveal to you something you have not seen.