Finding a New Church and Why It’s Not Fun

Finding a new church sometimes feels like throwing a heavy sack of stones over my shoulder and then hauling it around. Maybe that seems a bit dramatic, but because of life with the military, I have had to find a new church more times than I care to think about. We just moved for the sixth time in fifteen years, so I’m back at it once again.

After our first move, we found a church after visiting just a couple of places. Looking back, I realize that while we enjoyed worshipping there, and our faith certainly grew on a personal level, we never made deep or lasting connections with the church community. Unfortunately, with moving so often, those have been the majority of our experiences with churchgoing, and Covid has not helped this trend. We seem to be a family who needs ample time to connect with people, maybe more time than other families.

I often feel that the idea of church hopping or “shopping” has a negative connotation. On one hand, I understand. If the church is an all-encompassing community, then ideally we could walk in and worship anywhere that has an open door. For a single Sunday, I believe this is true. I can let myself enjoy the service, the music, the message and whatever else I see that is beautiful and allows me to know the Lord better or more deeply. However, if going back to a church after that one Sunday feels like drudgery, then it is not going to be a good fit. A tension exists there that we have to balance.

I have gone back and forth with myself over the idea that the service itself is not of utmost importance. The community we find at a church will be the bigger and better gift, right? Yet now, after finding a new church six times, I am convinced that both the service and the community are important. I attend services because I desire to worship the God who saves me. I love him, and I crave the time at church when I can get out of my own head and think about nothing else except praising God for the wide and long and high and deep love of Christ (Ephesians 3:18). I also attend church because I want to be the hands and feet of Jesus with other believers, which occurs in serving within the church, within small groups, and in the wider community. Relationships naturally come out of serving or studying the Bible together.

While these things are true, other factors end up having to be part of the great church search and final choice. Church needs to meet the needs of our kids. I confess that we prefer church services that last ninety minutes or less because our kids have a difficult time lasting longer than that with a good attitude. We have kids aged three to fourteen, so finding a time that works for everyone presents a challenge as well.  We are either waking up earlier than everyone likes or running into naptime. We need a place where our kids feel safe. We need patient people who are willing to hold our youngest until she feels ready to play. It seems like every church should have such people, but that has not been our experience. We also hope to find a church that is not too loud, literally.

Our hope is that our children will love church and that seeing the church in action will inspire them to love extravagantly like Jesus. So far, our kids have had many different churches as examples. have questioned what my kids might be taking away from the last few churches we have attended, although I am fairly certain there was nothing overly negative. The older my kids have grown, the more easygoing they have become. I am the one with all the questions and complaints. I love church, and I want to love church, but I am also disenchanted with it in many ways. Many people today are struggling with the deconstruction of their faith. My faith in Jesus and what he did for me on the cross is as strong as ever; it is the church and the ways it functions that at times both fires me up and saddens my heart.

Recently, I read The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr and Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes du Mez. Before I read these books, I had a foreboding feeling that there were gaps in my knowledge of evangelical church history. While these books confirmed that those gaps indeed exist, they also opened my eyes to knowledge about the church that I cannot unlearn. They have made me hope for more from the church than I ever have before, which has also compelled me to search for a church with a diverse community, where women are allowed and encouraged to use their gifts to serve and teach, and especially where white men do not hold all the power, which just makes that list of desirable church qualities longer.

Visiting churches takes time. Some we can rule out just by looking at the website or listening to a sermon online. Usually, I visit without the family the first time in case the vibe is weird right from the get-go, although this has only happened once or twice. This, time I asked my husband to be the first one to visit some of the churches on our list of potentials. He reads first impressions better than I do, and I hope that will help us make a choice. Basically, I’m procrastinating and feeling ambivalent about the whole process. I wish I could walk into a church and have it feel instantly like home, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen this time around.

Being connected to and a part of God’s imperfect church is something my heart yearns for despite the ambivalence I feel about the process and the concerns I have about how churches function. With that in mind, I know it’s time to get on with it.

Carla Clemens enjoys a crazy, beautiful life with her military husband, four sons, and a daughter. A baby interrupts her homeschool days in the best ways, and she is always attempting to live with mindfulness of each moment. She hopes to look at the world and each person in it in light of our amazing Creator, and therefore, to see each moment presented as an opportunity to love and serve him more. Carla relishes time to ponder God’s Word and have quiet moments with him and her coffee. She loves doing life with other mamas and encouraging them to simply be who God has made them to be.

Photograph © Roger Starnes, Sr. used with permission