Time to go shopping!

Well, today was my last day of attending New Community Church of Tacoma, and thank you to everyone at NCCT for providing a great church home for me for the past year. However, it’s time to pull the link from the “Affiliations” section in my sidebar and declare that the hunt for a new church is on!
Of course, most of my LDS readers have probably never shopped for a church before. That’s okay; I haven’t either! These are the Protestant churches I’ve attended and why I’ve attended them:
  • Puyallup Church of the Nazarene (1992-1998) – It was my aunt’s church.
  • Sumner Presbyterian Church (1998-2002) – Found it through a friend from high school and made the switch without checking out other churches.
  • Rock Canyon Assembly of God (2001-2006) – Found it through the Christianity Todayarticle “A Peacemaker in Provo.“
  • New Community Church of Tacoma (2008-2009) – Found them through their booth at the Tacoma Farmer’s Market.
With all of these churches I didn’t bother shopping around and checking out other churches before I settled in on them; many things which are a big deal to me now were non-issues back then, like ordination of women and a church home that treats my interfaith family well. Now that I’m moving to a new area where I know hardly anyone and have few recommendations on a church home, I finally get to shop around for a church.
Why shop for a church? I consider myself an interdenominational evangelical Protestant, which means I don’t have a single denomination I subscribe to, so I’m willing to “hop” denominations to fit my needs. Since I’ve never done this before, I did try looking up information on how to do this, and found a handy little online book: “How to Shop for a Church” by Pastor Doug Husen.
Here are some of the things I’m looking for in a church:
Non-Negotiable
  • Treats my interfaith family well — If the pastor starts giving me Counter-Cult 101 and citing The God Makers upon finding out that my husband is Mormon, things are just not going to work. My LDS husband visits my church once a month and it’s essential to me that he feels welcome.
  • Egalitarian — This has become an essential to me. I believe there are very good reasons and arguments for being a soft complementarian, but if a denomination discriminates against women, I’m not going to church there.
  • Great children’s program — It’s important to me that Harley gets more than just a babysitter when she attends children’s ministry and that she develops a relationship with and comes to recognize the children’s ministry workers. It’s also important to me that the workers understand why she only comes every other week and leave the discussion of Mormonism between her and her parents.
  • Within a 30 minute drive from my home in Vernon Hills — I’m not driving farther than that. Nope, not gonna do it.
Important, but negotiable
  • Upbeat, modern worship — I enjoy the use of guitars in worship immensely, and I find that I connect best to God in a service that has some upbeat praise & worship music before slowing things down. I really enjoy being able to raise my hands in worship, too. I just love worship where I can be joyful before God.
  • Communion once a month or more — I would get it weekly if I could, but I have yet to attend a Protestant church that does it weekly. Quarterly feels like way too long between communions. Monthly is okay, but it kind of sucks if you miss the week that it’s done.
  • Practice of spiritual gifts — They don’t have to have a display of tongues and interpretation thereof every week, but I’d prefer to avoid a strict cessationist church.
  • A woman pastor — I’m looking for a church which has at least one woman on its pastoral staff because I’ve never had one and it’s been on my heart to support a woman’s ministry. She does not have to be the senior pastor, but an associate, executive, assistant or youth pastor would be nice, and I’d like to hear a woman give the message from the pulpit on a regular basis.
  • A variety of opportunities to participate and serve — This isn’t a priority because I’ll likely be so busy with seminary anyways, but it’s always great to have plenty of opportunities to exercise my gifts.
Would be nice but not important
  • Arminian — It’s always nice to attend a church which believes the same about free will and the sovereignty of God as I do, but this is far from essential. I was happy at a Calvinist church for years.
  • Believer’s Baptism — Again, not horribly important, but I do appreciate it when a church practices baptism of believers by immersion.
  • Observance of traditional Christian holidays — Believe it or not, I kind of like celebrating things like Advent, Lent, and Reformation Day. It helps if I’m attending a congregation that brings them up in services as these days approach. It’s hard to combine high church liturgical practices with evangelical Christian casualness, but I can try.
  • Variety of Sunday school classes — Unimportant during the school year since I’ll be attending seminary anyways, but would be nice during the summer. The possibility of worshiping with one church and attending weekly classes with another always exists.
Summaries of Churches Visited:
DeerGrove Covenant Church / Evangelical Covenant Church
Willow Creek North Shore / Non-Denominational
Church of the Redeemer / Anglican Mission in America
A brief note on my church hunt
First Presbyterian Church of Libertyville / Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.)
My decision

Comments

Time to go shopping! — 13 Comments

  4. I’ve never heard Todd’s opinion on the ordination of women. He’s Southern Baptist, so it’s likely that he’s some kind of complementarian, but I’m pretty sure he’s not a militant one. Who knows though; he could be in disagreement with the SBC on the matter.
    Yes, I would still consider soft complementarianism to be discriminatory. I’m just going by the textbook definition of discrimination, and telling someone she can’t be a pastor or elder simply because she’s a woman fits the bill. There are some insanely wonderful soft complementarians out there though whom I have a lot of respect for, Craig Blomberg being among them. And a blog I’ve really been enjoying lately is T.C. Robinson’s New Leaven. T.C. is the worst complementarian Calvinist I’ve ever seen; he’s way too nice and respectful of Arminian & egalitarian views!
    Truth be told, I could probably be quite happy at a good soft complementarian church since the only offices restricted from me would be pastor and elder. I’ve no intention of ever being a pastor and I could probably live without being an elder. It’s just the principle of the matter that bugs me.
  6. Cool, church shopping. Fun!
    So would you go to a church that was egalitarian in theory but not practice (i.e. they could/would have a female pastor, but for whatever reason just don’t)?
  8. “…he could be in disagreement with the SBC on the matter.”
    Jimmy Carter’s comments at a SBC Meeting some months ago was a plea for unity in spite of differences about Woman Ministers, Homosexuals, etc. So, they may not have a defined policy on that.
  9. The SBC does have an official position on not ordaining women. See the Wikipedia articlehere.
    However, since local SBC churches are considered autonomous, they don’t have to listen to the denomination’s official position, so Todd could technically ordain women at his church if he wanted to.
    I’ll poke Todd and see if he wants to come comment on the matter.
  10. Jack, I wish you could come to my church here. Definitely egalitarian, great music, communion every week, killer sermons, fantastic people.
    It’s going to be hard to find something that I like as much when we move.
  11. Chicago, eh?
    (Just got back into I.F. tonight, and I saw your note BJM. Interestingly, my great, great grandfather took divinity classes at the University of Chicago. I have brought many of his books back from a Wood reunion in Oregon. And I now have a large picture of all the attendees to the Baptist National Convention, May 1867, seated and standing in front of the University of Chicago. The Baptist history of my family is remarkable.)
    Regarding the conversation in the thread, I would be independent of the SBC. Secondly, our church family is complementarian.
    Hoping the best for you and your hubby in the days ahead. Learn lots.
    et
  12. Todd ~ Thanks for coming by and clarifying your position for us. That’s neat that you have such a deep Baptist history.
    You know, I know I have a preacher *somewhere* in my British lineage, through my father’s mother’s side, but I’m totally not sure what denomination he was. I should really bug those Mormons on how to do genealogy sometime so that I can find out.
  13. I love the idea of shopping around for a new congregation. I have very little in common with the members of my ward. I’ve struggled a lot during the past year to the point that I don’t want to go to church. I can’t even begin to relate how tortuous ward activities are for me. I can’t move, at least not for another year, and I really don’t want to move, the place we are in fits our family’s needs perfectly. I’d really, really like the choice to find a new congregation to attend.
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