Visiting Churches

I am that small town boy who lived in the same Arkansan community for the majority of his life.  I never visited churches when I moved to college, I just picked one.  So now, we (Bailey and I - http://thegreenacres.blogspot.com/) have moved from a town of 10,000 to Fort Worth, TX.  Here you could visit churches for the rest of your life, and those are only the ones aligned with the SBC.  So how do you choose? Dare you judge? When do you begin paying dues and transfer this so-called church letter? 

It quickly became clear that the close your eyes and point to the map method, although methodological, felt about as productive as reading an encyclopedia. Ironically, I found myself deciphering the churches we would visit through online dating. There isn't a website that matches you by personality or similarity (yet). But, most churches have fairly functional sites which told me they know what the internet is, but I also found that I was able to "size up" a church with somewhat precision. I know this sounds judgmental, because in all truthfulness, it is.  So work hard not to judge but pray for discernment and seek God to guide you through the help of the Holy Spirit. 


The second factor I learned is that you can't make a choice from one, two, or more visits.  So, don't jump in the creek before you know that there is a swimming hole to land in.  After visiting the churches we selected to visit we choose a church to visit consistently, and for now feel guided to become a part of this community. The major contributions to this decision were biblical teaching and application, and genuine community.  Although there were other bodies of believers that partly fulfilled these for us, the tipping point was a family of believers that were willing to be our community immediately.  Bailey and I found ourselves in a place needing community, and for now we believe to have found it.