This Sunday will the the first of many church-hopping experiences.
First Presbyterian is a great church; the people are warm and welcoming, there is a sense of genuineness and earnestness, and in my experience they don’t let the politics of the outside world or even the greater denomination influence the decisions or cause divides. On top of that, it is a church that matches fairly closely to my theological beliefs. With that said, it is a church that reaches a certain population, a population I am not apart of. I am talking about the over fifty WASPy crowd of well-educated, wealthy families. I started going to First Presbyterian on my own, with no family members already attending and Thomas and Roz the only people I really knew. The congregation is a friendly one, so they made wonderful attempts to make me feel welcome. Feeling welcome has never been a problem with the church; a person would have to try very hard to feel genuinely unwelcome at that church. For me, it was that I have never felt apart of the community as a whole because I had so little to relate to them. Listening to their conversations over lunches and meetings were often thought-provoking and well-spoken, but I never could really get my foot in the door.
This has made me really rethink my priorities in looking for a church. My number one reason for leaving First Baptist for First Presbyterian four years ago were strictly theological. I was apart of the church community, but my conscience wouldn’t allow me stay content with all the disagreements I had. It took a sharp turn when Pat came in because not only were we in immediate disagreement, but he was very outspoken (not directed at me of course) against a number of my theological convictions. I was involved in a number of ministries, but one Sunday I just stopped altogether without notice. It was not on bad terms. The sociology of religions stats I have read say that community is the number one reason for attending one church over another, with theological being pretty far down on the list. I defied this initially, but now understand it a lot better. Aside from the basic, orthodox tenets of historical Christianity, theology tends to be so abstract that it has very little practical application. I do tend to see the Bible through different lenses that my Arminian friends, but the application doesn’t really espouse any differences in actual church services, save for the occasional sermons that touch on it. Infant baptism is the most practical theological difference between Baptist Bob and Presbyterian Pete. Due to the typical socio-economical differences between the two, real-world differences to appear, such as politics, however. Due to the abstract nature of this theology, it mostly something that refers to the historical roots of a denomination or arguing points between friends and academics (which I still absolutely love).
This is what I am looking for in a church:
1. Historical Christian orthodoxy
2. Community I can relate to
3. Everything else
When I say community, I do not meet junior high meet-and-greet; I mean strong Christian community that can dive into doctrine on its own. I think church should start with the community, or else there wouldn’t be a church. There are about eighty churches in small-town Ada. There will be some churches that will automatically be weeded out, but there are still plenty of churches that meet this criteria. A strong college-age ministry is what I will be looking at most closely. The circuit of Baptist churches are an easy start, but I really do not want to get warn out with always having to be on the defensive about my theological beliefs. There is also the fact that I have a certain world view that may be described as liberal. If people can just live and let live in church and then argue with me on our own time, I’d be content. I also want to check out the Episcopalian church. It’s an old church, I think, but Anglican services are fun. There’s plenty of non-denom churches around, but I would like to steer clear of charismatic churches if possible. My Stratford Miracle Outpouring experience has caused me to become just a little bit bitter at charismatic shenanigans. Here are my beliefs (dug up from 2004):
Soteriology: Five-point, supralapsarian (though an unimportant detail) Calvinist.
Eschatology: Amillenial, partial-preterist
Ecclesiastical Structure (denominational structure): Surprisingly, I like Southern Baptist’s autonomy, but I think it’s important to have denominational accountability.
Church Government (local body): Elders and deacons. Not only do I think it’s biblical, I think it’s practical because it doesn’t allow power to be too centralized on one person.
Baptism: This is one issue I oscillate on. The idea of pedobaptism (infant) makes sense with covenant theology in mind, but it lacks a lot of New Testament support that credobaptism (believer) has.
Gifts of the Spirit: non-cessationalist, but I am very very very skeptical of 99% of the claims of gifts. Ministry gifts seem unnecessary when the Bible has become God’s main source of revelation.
Christian involvement in politics (Theonomy): Not a fan of theonomy, and I like separation of church and state, but it makes sense for Christians to vote their morals.
Inerrancy: God hasn’t left us wanting for his word. Inerrant in original language.
Method of Biblical interpretation: Grammatico-historical and Christ-centered (especially OT)
Baptism of the Holy Spirit: Save for the special circumstances in Acts, upon regeneration.
Dispensationalist, Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Kingdom Theology, or something else?: Covenant
This screams conservative Presbyterian, Reformed Baptist, or some other reformed non-denom church, but my options are limited.
