Picking a New Church in a New City (part 1)

When we moved to Philadelphia a year ago, Teresa and I had to pick a new church. Neither of us have had to do that in the last ten years, but it's probably not a bad thing.

When Christ died for the sins of God's people and rose on the 3rd day, He created the church of God. If we want to know the value of the church in God's eyes, we only need to look to the price He paid for it. Acts 20:28 says that the church of God was something Jesus “obtained with his own blood.” The infinite blood of Christ was used to secure the redemption of the church! Therefore, we ought to esteem the church as God esteems her. God doesn't take church membership lightly, and neither should we. At the get-go, we wanted to find a church where we could fully commit ourselves for the next few years while we're in seminary.

MENTORED MINISTRY

One factor that we had to consider was where we would be mentored. Westminster has a Mentored Ministry requirement. This means I have to do 400 hours of service (either paid or unpaid) under the supervision of a pastor. This could be done all at once (e.g. a summer internship or a mission trip) and it doesn't have to be done in your home church. For instance, we knew someone who attended one church Sunday morning but then served as a paid pastor at another church during the afternoon.

If possible, Teresa and I wanted to be members of a church where we could also do our Mentored Ministry. We felt the Lord leading us to go “all-in” with one church. This would be the church where we would worship God, hear God's Word preached, love our fellow brothers and sisters, serve others, and also be mentored.

FULL COMMITMENT

Spurgeon said, “The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.” Nobody claims to look for the perfect church, but when the rubber meets the road, things can be quite different. It's not uncommon to hear of seminary students who change churches every year or two and never become fully committed.

This can be all too common among churches in America. At our church back in Texas, we knew people who transferred to different churches for different reasons. Sometimes there are good reasons to leave a church. Yet in other cases, folks headed for the exits rather than staying committed to the body when things got tough.

If possible, Teresa and I wanted to commit ourselves to one church for the entire duration of our time in seminary. We wanted to pick a church for the long-haul. We didn't want to try out a church for a season and then switch to a different one. This required doing as much legwork up-front: researching options, reading about beliefs and ministries, talking to people, and listening to sermons on-line. Of course, despite all our advance in modern technology, we would still need to visit churches in person.

At the end of a 4-month process (which included a 10-week membership class), we committed ourselves as members of Covenant Fellowship Church located in a Philadelphia suburb. In the upcoming blog posts, I'll go into more detail on how God led us to Covenant Fellowship.