What are People Looking for in a Church?

Have you ever asked a question that is merely an opinion?  I feel like the title of today's blog post is exactly that!  Everyone has an opinion about what they are looking for in a church.

Maybe a better question would be, "What are the marks of growing churches?"

Why the change?

If a church is growing, it means that others are also looking for and discovering something special/different in that church.  While a church can grow initially through good marketing, strong music, or outstanding programs, it can only sustain growth by one simple distinction.

A growing church is marked by a passionate spirituality 

that is balanced with thoughtful presentation of the truth.  

Such a place will grow deeper in the gospel 

and as we grow deeper, we will grow outward.

Why? A church that is in love with Jesus will be touched by His presence.   There will be wonderful conversions.  There will be a hunger for growing in holiness.  There will be a desire to encourage others to know the grace of God.

Boy, I wish most churches (even the ones I have served as pastor!) would be marked by these tendencies.  Why do we not see this more?

There are many reasons for our lack.  Too many for one post!  Today I will share two errors that occur when folks either over-emphasize Truth without heart-changing grace or they over-emphasize emotionalism without embracing God's revealed Truth.

It is ironic that both of these seemingly contradictory errors are two sides of the same coin.  How so?

To explain I will begin with a thoughtful passage written by John Piper in a  book he co-wrote with D.A. Carson called, The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor.  Piper writes,

Now, how does this relate to the pastor as scholar?  On the one hand, its first effect is to protect the church from the dangers of a scholarly bent.  Many pastors, especially those who love the glorious vision of God's being and beauty and plan of salvation, have a scholarly bent that threatens to over-intellectualize the Christian faith, which means they turn it mainly into a system to be thought about rather than a way of life to be felt and lived.  Of course, it is a system as well as a life.  But the danger is that the whole thing can be made to feel academic rather than heart-wrenchingly real.  That's what Christian hedonism helps us to avoid.

Where the faith is over-intellectualized, many ordinary, authentic saints can smell the error.  Rightly, they start drifting away, but sadly, often into the worst extremes of emotionalism.  But if Christian hedonism is alive- I have found that many starving saints make their way home to a place where head and heart are more in balance, and the reality and power of the Holy Spirit are craved and cherished.

Piper, The Pastor as Scholar, 49.

Why would we ever wish to divorce emotional engagement from Truth?  To be a believer, one does not need to check either their emotions or their brains at the door!  Bring both because as Piper has written about for years, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

All of us have met people who have drifted to an extreme of being either too intellectual or too emotional.  Maybe it is us?  Thankfully, authentic spirituality balances heart with head.  It maintains Truth and it encourages emotional engagement.

What are people looking for in a church?

How about a place marked by a faith that is 

both intellectually deep and emotionally transformative?