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Aaron Waid

Aaron has Master's degree from Denver Seminary, a Master's degree in Journalism from Marshall University, and Bachelor's degrees in Psychology and English from Davis and Elkins College. Aaron has served in churches for over a decade in many positions. He is a husband, father, musician, and deeply believes that knowing Jesus is the purpose of life.

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Practical Considerations For Finding The Right Church

We’re going to begin thinking about finding the right church for you with some basic, practical thoughts. Often, practical considerations are the first things people take into mind when searching for a church, but there may be some ideas in this list you haven’t thought about closely yet.  Make sure you’ve been thinking about each of these topics as a foundation for your church search!

Location

Is the church facility easy for you to get to? Is travel to a worship service once a week feasible for you at a given church? What if you decide to get more involved – could you easily make a second, or even third trip to this church during a week? As someone who has served in multiple churches, I can tell you that travel to and from church is almost always an on-going issue with many people in the congregation.

Worship Times

Does the church offer the particular worship service you’re seeking at a time when you can attend? For most people, Sunday morning still fits their schedule the best. However, if Sunday mornings tend to be tougher for you, some churches have alternative worship times, such as Sunday evening, or another day of the week. If you travel, or are occupied on the weekends a lot, you might be better served by a church with an alternative worship time.

Specific Personal Needs

I’m going to speak very broadly here – but do you, or someone in your family, have specific needs that might rule out a particular church, because the church simply does not have the ability to accommodate you or your loved ones? Generally, larger churches have more options available, and smaller churches will often not have the resources to be so broad in their offerings. It’s usually best to find a church that fits you, rather than choosing a church and then attempting to get them to accommodate your specific needs

Opportunities To Serve

Presuming the church you have selected is a place you’d like to put down roots, how involved do you want to be? And what would you like to do?

Would you like to volunteer a few times a year? Every month? Every week? Every day? Maybe you’re not really interested in serving at the church at all. Depending on how much time you’d like to devote to your own ministry endeavors, you should look for a church that meets your needs, has ministries you’d like to be involved with, and is capable of providing opportunities where you feel called to serve.

Ministries For Other Family Members

If you’re also church shopping for your family, you will definitely want to take into consideration their unique needs. Children, youth, young adult, seniors, and other ministries might become one of the most critical “selling points” for you about a church.

Not every church can cater to every need. For example, if you begin bringing your teenage daughter to a church with no other teenagers, you shouldn’t be surprised to find that it also doesn’t have a youth group.

Additionally, (AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT), you should have honest conversations with your family members about churches you are considering, and ask them where they might find a place in that church – assuming they become deeply involved at all.

Using teenagers as an example again, not every teen likes or wants to be part of youth group. But that same teenager might really love serving with the children’s ministry, or having the opportunity to play or sing on the worship team, or have the chance for local mission work. Serving in those areas might open up even greater opportunities for their spiritual growth.

The same concept applies for other family members as well – just try to find ways to talk about these topics with them and look for a church that best fits the needs of everyone.

Up Next – Understanding Church Communities

Ok – so the practical considerations are pretty easy to evaluate. Next, we’re going to dive into the issue of church community, which is another major topic you might be looking at initially.

So let’s take a look at the most important topics for evaluating if a church’s community is something you can get on board with!

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