Church-shopping. ’Cause sometimes you need a new church.

Know what to look for when you’re considering a move.

Church-shop /'tʃərtʃ.ʃɑp/ v. Look for the best available church.

[Church-shopper, /'tʃərtʃ.ʃɑp.pər/ vt., church-shopping /'tʃərtʃ.ʃɑp.pɪŋ/ vt.]

If you haven’t been going to church, or never did go to church, it’s time to start.

And at certain times in a Christian’s life, we’re gonna have to go to another church. Sometimes for good reason; sometimes not. In my case it’s usually because I moved to a new city, although twice it’s been because the church went wrong.

In any event, Christians decide to begin a process we Americans call “church-shopping.” We visit a new church and try it on for size. If we like it, we stick around. If not, we move along and try another.

It’s not a complicated idea. It only gets complicated because certain Christians are extremely choosy about their churches. And there are other Christians who are convinced church-shopping is fundamentally wrong. Even devilish.

Devilish? Yeah; it’s because they read C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Namely where senior devil Screwtape advises a junior devil to encourage what sounds an awful lot like church-shopping. If a person must go to church, “the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him,” which “makes the man a critic where [God] wants him to be a pupil.” Letter XVI We’re no experts on what makes one church better than another. We’ll wind up using silly, superficial criteria to judge. How dare we?

Well, here’s how dare we: You’ve got a brain, don’t you? You can learn how to gauge a church on meaningful, weighty criteria. Ain’t that difficult. Those who insist we leave all the thinking to experts, have a really bad habit of doing very little thinking, and as a result fall prey to a whole lot of false teachers and legalists. Ignore them; they have their own problems.

For most Christians, church-shopping isn’t at all complicated. There’s a church in town they’ve either visited, and wouldn’t mind visiting again; or a church they’ve never tried, but they’re curious about it, and would like to give it a shot. They go. They like it. They stay. Simple.

For other Christians, church-shopping is an incredible trial. They go to a church for a few months: They get involved, get to know the people, even try to minister or join or get into leadership. Then they discover the dealbreakers. And they’re just heartbroken, and leave. They’ve been church-shopping for years, and haven’t found a church home yet. Just about every church in town—heck, the county—has met these folks: “Yeah, they went here for five months. So they’re at your church now? Well, glad they’re somewhere. I always wondered.”

I gotta tell you, though: If you’ve gone through 25 different churches in the area and can’t stay in a single one, it’s not the churches which are the problem. It’s you.

Needlessly long and wild prayers.

As I’ve written previously, ain’t nothing wrong with praying short prayers.

You might remember the Lord’s Prayer is a really short prayer. I mention this to Christians and they respond, “Oh! Yeah, that’s true.” Somehow it hadn’t occurred to them. Obviously Jesus has no problem with us keeping it brief: His example showed is it’s fine with him.

Problem is, we’re not following that example. We’re following a different one—where Jesus went off places and prayed for hours. Seriously, hours. One evening he sent his students off ahead of him and climbed a hill to pray; Mt 14.22-23 by the time he caught up with them (walking across the water, but still), it was “the fourth watch of the night,” Mt 14.25 KJV meaning between 3 and 6 a.m. Even if we generously figure Jesus stopped praying and started walking two hours before the fourth watch began (so, about 1-ish), that meant he was praying from sundown till then. Easily six or seven hours.

There’s nothing wrong with aspiring to be able to pray that long. But it needs to come naturally, like it does to Jesus. Can you talk six or seven hours with your best friend, or a beloved family member? Well some of us can. Others of us simply don’t talk that much, to anyone. And yet we all have this screwy idea we’ve gotta engage God in prayer marathons.

No, we’re not ready for six-hour prayers; we’re not Jesus-level prayer experts. But we figure we can at least do six minutes. Sounds reasonable, right?

Except we’re gonna attempt a six-minute prayer with two minutes’ worth of material. Two minutes of praise, thanksgiving, and requests. Followed by four minutes of repetitive, meaningless fluff. Two minutes of authenticity, four minutes of stretching things out. Two minutes of prayer, four minutes of hypocrisy.

Yes, hypocrisy. Who are we trying to impress? God? He didn’t ask us for long prayers. Others? Ourselves? Well, yeah.

When I became a theologian.

My pastor recently asked me what led me to go to a bible college and study theology.

It strikes a lot of people as odd that I majored in biblical and theological studies… and yet never had any plans to become a pastor nor college professor. ’Cause that’s usually why people major in that area. Or it’s not, but it’s what they naturally gravitate towards next. Whereas I went right back into journalism.

Well, journalism and theology are both searches for truth, y’know.

But generally how it happened was like this: I originally majored in journalism. Then I got sidetracked by newspaper jobs. And since the whole point of journalism school was to get newspaper jobs—and I already had newspaper jobs—I ditched school for work. Till I got downsized out of a job. Then I decided to knock out that bachelor’s degree once and for all.

By this point, I realized I didn’t need a journalism degree to get a journalism job. Half my fellow employees had no such degree: They majored in other stuff, and a lot of times they used that other stuff to help ’em be better reporters. A political science major is definitely gonna write better stories about politics, as will an economics major about business trends, or an education major about schools. You certainly don’t need a journalism degree to own or start a newspaper. Since I figured I’d taken all the relevant editing, ethics, media, and law courses, I didn’t feel like taking the others. I wanted to do journalism, not study it.

My mom asked me what I’d study if it could be anything I wished; I picked God.

For that, I figured my best bet would be a college in my denomination, the Assemblies of God. I looked into their nearest school, Bethany College (later Bethany University, which closed in 2011). The biblical studies major covered everything I wanted, so I knocked out the last general ed classes I needed to complete my A.A. in journalism, then transferred in. The journalism stuff didn’t transfer—which left me some units short, to my annoyance—so I minored in biblical languages. They come in handy.

And yeah, it confused my fellow students when they found out I had no plans to get a pastoral or teaching job. ’Cause that’s why they were studying it. What, was I there for fun?

Darn right I was there for fun. I had a blast. Really annoyed my roommates, ’cause all those years writing on deadline means papers come ridiculously easy to me. Plus I have this bad habit of remembering everything I read, so I spent way less time studying than they did, and aced tests anyway. I spent my free time turning the school newspaper from a monthly to a weekly, and writing a third of it myself. And yes, I still had a social life. And got my seven hours of sleep every night.

And after graduating, went back into journalism. Teaching came later.

Don’t be all talk.

James 1.26-27.

Both the Religious Left and Religious Right suck at following the following verses:

James 1.26-27 KWL

26 If anyone who doesn’t rein in their tongue thinks they’re religious,

they’ve deluded their own mind instead. This “religion” is meaningless.

27 Genuine, untainted religion before our God and Father is this:

Supervise single mothers and their children when they’re suffering.

Keep yourself spotless in this world.

The Left focuses on caring for the needy. Rightly so. But when it comes to spotlessness, they regularly make the mistake of confusing grace with compromise, and make too many compromises. (The Right likewise confuses grace with compromise; their error is out of their fear of compromise, they practice too little grace.)

The Right focuses on spotlessness—as they define it. As they should. But when it comes to the needy, they only take care of the deserving needy, not the poor in general. Like I said, too little grace. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, Lk 4.18 but today’s poor don’t always see oncoming Christians as good news, and the lack of grace is precisely why.

Both wings need improvement. But instead of repenting and working on it, they talk. They rip apart their political opponents, ’cause they figure it’s appropriate: Those guys are doing it wrong, and need rebuking. Meanwhile, verse 27 goes half-followed. Or unfollowed.

Politics aside, this bit connects with the previous bit about behaving instead of merely believing. Of living out Jesus’s teachings, and not just listening to them, believing in them, but not changing our lives in the slightest.

Here, James described those of us who listen but never act, as all talk. Not just all talk: Too much talk. Serious diarrhea of the mouth. But in fact it’s a smokescreen for the fact we’re not really following Jesus. We’re Christianists, not Christians.

And yeah, I gotta include myself in there. I have a bad habit of ranting more than I act. I try to do it the other way round, and try to be constructive and proactive instead of griping. But I’m under no delusion—or as James put it, apatón kardían aftú/“deluded [the] heart of them,” or as I translated it, “deluded their own mind.” I’m not lying to myself about it. Jesus doesn’t want me to merely talk, but to do the good deeds the Father originally created me to do. Ep 2.10 Talking ain’t necessarily a good deed.

No it’s not. Don’t delude yourself either.

Simony: Christians who wanna make a buck off you.

Simony /'s(a)ɪ.mə.ni/ n. The buying or selling of religious things which are meant to be given freely, or given only to qualified individuals.

[Simoniac /saɪ.mə'naɪ.ək/ adj., n.]

One of my bigger pet peeves are churches who forget a significant part of our job as Christians is to preach good news to the poor. Mt 11.5, Lk 4.18, 7.22 They kinda forget they even have poor among ’em. Consequently the poor find church a surprisingly expensive place to go.

Certain churches don’t want you in their Sunday services unless you’re in your “Sunday best.” I’ve actually heard a preacher justify this idea by pointing to Jesus’s story where a king throws out a guest for not wearing his wedding clothes. Mt 22.11-14 He figures Jesus is the king, and you better show up for his church in your Sunday best. Can’t afford the clothes? Try the thrift stores. Keep looking till someone finally donates a suit or dress in your size. ’Cause the people of the church won’t offer you any help, and people never think to ask; they just assume they’re not welcome there. Which ain’t far wrong.

Once you can finally dress for church, you’ll find many churches have hundreds of activities—but nearly all of them have a fee. It’s $100 to go to the men’s retreat. It’s $50 to register for the women’s conference. It’s $40 per couple for the couples’ dinner. Childcare’s an extra $5. There’s a six-week class on spiritual gifts, and the book is $18.95. There’s an out-of-town speaker, and people from the church will carpool to hear him, but gasoline and parking will be about $10, and afterward they expect to have dinner at a nice restaurant, which’ll set you back another $15.

And I haven’t even touched on simony yet. Now I shall.

There’s a growing trend in revivalist churches: They wanna open a school. Nothing wrong with that; a lot of great Christian colleges began as revivalist schools. (I graduated from one.) Now, if we’re talking a regionally accredited school, with educated faculty, transferrable units, and recognized degrees, that’d be one thing. We’re not. We’re talking about Sunday morning bible studies, now taught five days a week, and now people have to pay $1,000 or more to attend. Same variable content and quality as those conference speakers I just mentioned. I once visited such a school and sat in on such a class: It’s basic information which every church should teach every Sunday. But at this church, they have no Sunday morning classes. All their classes are behind a paywall.

Bigger churches tend to have midweek services, like on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights, to supplement the Sunday morning services, or accommodate people who couldn’t make ’em. One large church in my area put them behind a paywall too. Now they hold regular conferences: One of their pastors, or some visiting speaker, picks a topic, speaks two evenings plus Sunday morning, and the church charges $50 or more for the evening meetings. For some speakers, this (plus pushing their books) is their bread and butter. Content varies. Some of it’s actually good. Others are clearly winging it, and quote scripture out of context more often than not.