Here we go again ...

You've probably heard it said that if you find a perfect church, then you shouldn't join it. As soon as you do, it stops being perfect. In In Search of a Church, I had explained how we had decided which church to attend:

When we'd looked at quite a few churches and our radius was extending a bit farther than we'd like, we decided to take stock. We looked at all the churches we'd visited and discussed what we liked and what we didn't like about each one. We eventually settled on a medium-sized (by US standards) church with a contemporary worship style. We chose this church mainly because it was not too far from where we live and because it has a lot of children of Emily and Lauren's ages. We'll have to see how it goes from here.

Unfortunately, though, a few weeks of attending that church made us realise that we were not a good fit. This is no reflection on the level of perfection of the church (and I hope that it is not a reflection of our being overly fussy). The way it operates works well for those who have made it their home, but we came to realise that it is not for us.

The church has two services, each just over an hour long. We had initially decided that we could cope with just over an hour. We could go to the later service, so could still have a bit of a lie in on Sunday morning. The church had a lot of children of Emily and Lauren's ages and the girls seemed to enjoy going to the Sunday School.

Our first discovery that I considered problematic was that the Sunday School, it turned out, runs for the entire length of the service. This means that the children don't get to be with us during the service at all. We had already discounted other churches on these grounds because we consider the inclusion of children in a service as very important. I don't mind them not being present for the sermon (after all, I tend to wish that I'm not present for most sermons ), but I like them to be present during the rest of the service; especially during communion.

Upon enquiring about this, we were told that the way the church works is that everyone goes to both services (starting at 9am). One half of the church go to the first service. Of the other half, most are signed up for adult bible studies, children's Sunday School, and the remainder are signed up to do "serving" -- taking Sunday School, ushering etcetera. At the later service time, they all swap, so that the bible-studiers and servers attend the service.

Our choices were:

1. Do our own thing regardless of how the church is set up (ie. just go to one service, let the children join us in the service, then let the children go to Sunday School during the sermon). This was obviously a far from ideal solution.


2. Get stuck in fully and embrace the way that the church is set up. The problem was that this demanded a lot more from us than we are willing to give.


3. Find another church -- one that better suits our needs.

Furthermore, a regular attender was kind enough to explain to us how the church's "small groups" work.

Small groups are a means by which large churches keep a personal touch. Many churches here have them. As everyone can't know each other, fellowship with other Christians on a personal level in large churches is achieved by splitting the church into smaller groups that meet regularly. In essence, I dare say that this is fair enough (even if it does require an evening per fortnight of our time, it is a good way of meeting and getting to know people). When we first attended the church we were told that many people brought their children to their small group meetings. I'm all for the inclusion of children in church activities and it would save us having to get a babysitter or alternate who goes (which would default to being me going every time).

However, the more the man explained, the more we realised that Small Groups were not for us. It turned out that about once a fortnight the families go to these small groups only to be split into separate "bible studies" -- one for the men, one for the women and one for the children. Under this model, I'd only be getting to know the women in the church and even then only in a "bible studying" scenario. In addition, this sort of setup could, if a church is not careful, serve to propagate conservative Christian sexual stereotypes -- just the sort of thing that we try to steer clear of.

Although we decided to move on, it was not a wasted experience. It helped us to consider more closely what is important to us and what compromises we are or are not willing to make:

• We don't want inordinately long services and we especially don't want long sermons. I don't believe that God distributes His love or anything else in proportion to the length of my attention span (if he does, then there's little hope for me).


• We don't want to go to a church where we will be inadvertently sucked into having to attend endless church-based activities. We want to the freedom to be able to decide how involved we want to be, without any pressure.


• We want a church where the children are included into the service, especially during the singing and communion. We would like any Sunday School classes to be held during the sermon, not at a separate time. Some churches offer children a blessing during communion. Although this is better than nothing, I believe in allowing children to partake in communion as soon as they are old enough to eat a bit of bread (or wafer) and sip from a cup. I am willing to compromise in this because I am aware that there are few, if any, churches that hold this view. However, I think that it is a minimum requirement that the children are at least present during communion.

We are not looking for a "perfect church", just one where that is a good fit for us. So, all things considered, as far as the search for a church is concerned, here we go again...