Post 6: Finding a Local Church, Part 1
Image: AI generated image of a man standing in front of a church.
Post Summary: In the last post, I discussed some of the changes I begin to notice after setting my intentionality towards prayer and reading God's Word. This post discusses my search for finding a new church in the Seattle area.
Mom had previously mentioned one of the first and most important thing a new Christian should do is find a good bible-believing church centered on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She showed me how the bible implores us as believers in Christ to join a congregation of fellow believers to also assist in grow as a new Christian through fellowship and encouraging each other (Hebrews 10:25, Acts 2:42). She also mentioned that getting involved in a local body of Christ could also help lead to the discovery of gifts of the spirit bestowed from the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation (1 Corinthians 12:4-11).
I began this church search in early March 2024. I turned to google, searching for “Christian Churches near me” as the fastest way to locate Christian churches in the area. This search lead to finding 3 different fairly new churches within walking distance of my apartment that looked promising. I checked out each of the churches websites to get a brief look up information about each church, services offered, how to get involved in community, and the beliefs of each church. I was initially most drawn to two of the three churches because of how they detailed they were in discussing exactly what their beliefs are. However, I had already purposed in my heart to test all three churches during this testing period so I committed to that plan.
To aid in the decision making, I talked with mom about what I was planning to do and she mentioned to just try them all out as well. She also recommended that I pray about it, as Christians should be praying about all things (Philippians 4:6-7). She also implored me to pay close attention to how preachers are teaching about who Jesus is (Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Timothy 2:5-6) and why Jesus is our only Savior (Acts 4:12, John 3:16). I made a plan to test out each of the churches to see which offers more gospel-centered sermons and teachings (1 John 4:1).
The plan would involve visiting and experiencing a variety of different services offered at each of the 3 churches over a 6 month period. I planned to also find ways to volunteer on available service teams at each church, and look for opportunities for community involvement and homeless outreach. I also planned to meet and get to know leadership in the churches.
After a few weeks of information gathering and making this plan of how how to approach choosing the right church, it was time to begin this work of discovery. April 2024 would be the start of executing this plan, with the goal to wrap up my final thoughts and decision by September 2024.
Stay tuned for a future post where I go into detail about many of the activities I got involved in and some important points that lead me to make the choice of which church to call home.