Why are there so many churches and how to find a good one? | Rapp Report Daily Wrap-up 0017 | Striving for Eternity

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Why People Ask Whether There Are Too Many Churches

This week we were looking at answering a question from Sonia, asking why are there so many churches? And there seems to be a lot, especially when people first come into Christianity as she has. And so we challenge sometimes when it comes to all of the different churches, what to look for in a church, how to find a good church.

Now, this week's wrap-up, we can't give you an extensive answer to all of the questions, but we tried to briefly give you an answer, what to look for when you are looking for a church, and why there are some of the differences that you see within the different churches.

And we're doing that because this comes up often, and people wonder, how do I find a good church? Some get discouraged to a point where they say, you know what, enough of this, I can't find a good church, so I won't go to any church.

That's not right, that's not Biblical. God says not to forsake the assembling together. But I think, as we'll mention, many of the reasons that people go to churches are wrong. They go to church to serve themselves and not God and the body He has put them in.

And when that mindset changes, you can suddenly find churches, maybe you don't agree with 100%, maybe it doesn't have the music you like, maybe it doesn't have things that you would prefer, but it's where God could put you and have you serve others, and therefore, what you end up finding is you're able to fit into that body of believers and worship God together.

So, here's this week's wrap-up from the Wrap Report Dailies. I hope you subscribe to the dailies. A new believer, Sonia, asked us a question, why are there so many churches? Now, she happens to have come from a Mormon background where you'd have one church, doesn't matter where you go in the country, the same Mormon church, they're all going to preach the same message in all of them.

And so, it doesn't matter which Mormon church you go to, they're all the same in that sense. And so, now that she's come to know Christ, she's asking the question, why are there so many churches? What are the differences?

Where should I go? That's what we're going to try to address this week. And so, the first thing we have to notice is, yes, there are different churches. Why? Well, the short answer is because they disagree with one another, sometimes on major things, sometimes on minor things.

But when we talk about biblical churches, there are going to be churches that are going to follow a pattern of what God says a church should be. Those churches are going to be ones where you're going to get the Word of God proclaimed from the pulpit, week after week, no dramas and games and things like that.

They'll be preaching of God's Word. They're going to have the ordinances, which we would say would be baptism and following of the Lord's Supper. And the Puritans used to add church discipline. It's a place where the churches would actually take the purity of the church serious, serious enough that they would end up having to discipline people who are disobedient and refusing to repent.

Now, we're going to end up doing a longer podcast on church discipline. But this week, what I'd like to do is take a look at some of the differences that we have in different churches and what would define good churches versus churches maybe we should, well, stay away from.

And so that's what we're going to look at this week. As we discuss what makes a good church, we have to understand that even the word church has changed over time. If you look at the original word, the original word for church in the Greek ecclesia was actually started in Ephesus to refer to the way they would gather together for political purposes to take a vote.

It meant the idea of a gathering together for purpose. That was the general term for it was just a gathering. But after Christ, it became a little bit more specific. It became more specific to refer to the gathering together of God's people for the purpose of worshiping God.

But even that over time became even more specific because as things came up, there became a separation between what was called the visible and the invisible church or what's called the local and universal.

Local or visible are those that gather together. They're not all believers, but they gather at a local assembly for the purposes of worshiping God. The invisible or universal church are all the believers everywhere in the world, and they're only referring to believers.

But then during the Puritans, they got a little bit more specific and said, you know, there's some things that define what a church is. And there's three elements that they ended up holding to. The three were that they would have to have the Bible proclaimed and preached from the pulpit.

There would be practicing of the ordinances, that being baptism and the Lord's Supper. And third, the practice of church discipline. In other words, taking the seriousness of the purity of the church.

There's more we could discuss, and you could get more information in my book, What Do They Believe? When we talk about how to find a good church, boy, does that open up a can of worms. You know, we recently did one of the weekly podcasts about a new film coming out, Spirit and Truth, which is going to deal with worship.

And this is where you see a lot of differences when it comes to church. The question of worship. Now I'm not talking about the music, what styles of music, whether it's more contemporary versus more of the traditional hymns.

Not talking that. We're talking about worship. What is the central focus of the church? Are they worshiping self or Christ? Now, I understand every church is going to say they are worshiping Christ. But in reality, when you start listening to some of the songs they sing, many of the churches say they're worshiping Christ, but all their songs are about me.

Much of the preaching that you hear from the pulpit is not about Christ, but me. What I'm going through, it's all applicational. And when you see a church that has all the focus on man and not Christ, you've got to wonder what they're really worshiping.

And that's going to be the biggest indicator to finding a good church, is to evaluate what is it that they worship. Christ or self. You have churches that are trying to be marketed to people to make them feel good, to make them come and have a euphoric feeling of being excited.

Whether it be through music or the preaching or some do dramas, but that doesn't lift up Christ. That lifts up self. You want to find a church where Christ is exalted. There are so many differences that people look for when it comes to trying to find a good church.

There's differences with the size of the church. Some people like a larger church. Some people like that smaller gathering where they get to know everybody. There's going to be some churches where they're going to have lots of programs for all ages.

Some that have very few. Smaller churches tend to have fewer programs. So what you end up seeing is that every church is going to be unique. And the question we must ask when trying to find a church is, what gifts has God given me?

Why? Because we have to remember that when you enter into the body of Christ, into a church, God is specifically putting you there so that you can serve that body of believers. He's gifted you uniquely.

And that's just like every church is going to be unique. Every person in the church is uniquely put there by Christ for the purpose of serving the body. So the best thing to do when trying to find a church to go to is ask yourself, how has God gifted me and how can I serve this body of believers?

Because that's going to help. You may be gifted in a way that would help a church more than one church versus another. And that is one of the things to look for. Look for the church. Don't look at what it can do for you.

But be looking at what you can do for the body of Christ there assembled. I'm going to tell you from personal experience, there was a church I stayed in for two years even though I disagreed with the leadership and some of the doctrine because I was able to serve the church.

You can stay in a church you don't completely agree with as long as you're not going to cause division and serve people. So what church should I go to? Well, now we get into some other things to also think about is denominations.

You have a bunch of different types of churches. You have Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, Lutheran churches, Bible churches, independent non-denominational churches, Pentecostal churches, Assemblies of God.

You have a wide range of churches. And really what you want to do is find churches that are going to agree as close as possible with your theological stance. Now, like I said yesterday, it's not always going to be a case where what you believe is where you're going to go.

Sometimes you can't find a good church that agrees with your own doctrine. Okay, maybe you go somewhere else that disagrees with your theology in some minor areas, but you can still serve. I have been a Baptist.

That's what I go to, Baptistic type churches or Bible churches. But I can go into a Presbyterian church and I'm able to serve there and be part of their body, but I wouldn't be part of their membership.

Why? Well, I wouldn't agree with their doctrine completely on several things. And you've got to know what those things are of the differences. And the area that we have differences are areas of the way the church functions.

But when it comes to things like, do we believe that Jesus is God? You're going to see agreement across the board on those with the churches that I mentioned. So really the question is going to be, how does the church govern itself?

How does the church function? That's what defines many of the differences. There are some theological ones as well, but find the one that best suits your own theology.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.