Dale Sutherland on Finding The Right Church for You | Vienna, VA

The problem is: NO church has all of those things. We would be living in a very dissatisfied state if we thought our church should have all of these attributes and when it comes to church, it doesn’t seem that these things are the #1 priority for God.

Churches are an important part of our lives.

Dale Sutherland

They were designed to bring together God’s people to worship Him and to help us to live biblically-centered, Christ-immersed lives. We are really happy when we find a church that has the right preaching, the right singing, the best volunteers, a place where the youth group is attractive to our kids, and the children’s ministry is really fun for the little ones.

Finding the right church is not necessarily centered around “what is best for me.”

The better question that might be asked is “where does God want me?” If you are someone who doesn’t know as much about the Scriptures and you are new in your faith, you may want to go to a church that teaches the Bible in a way you can build a good foundation for your spiritual life going forward.

Dale Sutherland

Dale Sutherland

If you are a person who struggles with different types of worship, you might try to find a church where you can praise the Lord, in spite of their different type of music. We do not want church to become a place where it has all the things we want and all of our preferences. We want church to be a place where we come to glorify and praise God and we can learn and live by His words.

If we take the biblical direction we get from Hebrews 10:24-25, we know that we are to do a couple of things: 1. meet with other believers every week 2. provoke or encourage other believers toward love and good works 3. share this with people we know and get close to

Dale Sutherland

In order to do those three things, we must be involved with other Christians. You will never be able to obey this solely on zoom. The truth is, zoom is very helpful when we are sick or we are in a pandemic, but we need to find a way to obey the Scripture by meeting together face-to-face, heart-to-heart, and life-tolight.

We hope that God will lead us individually to the right church, however, we know what He wants in church, so it is not that big of a mystery to figure out the “right” church. Apply the biblical directives we have included here and ignore the temptation to define something that meets your personal preferences. Focus on the truth of God’s word, loving and serving your brothers and sisters, and reaching the lost. All of these things will be more important than any other goal we might have in locating a church. I hope can be an encouragement to you. I have seen thousands and thousands of people change churches and go to new churches, only to come back to the one they left and not see much satisfaction in the whole process. Pursue the Lord and watch what He does to lead you in the next steps.

Dale Sutherland