"What Should I Look for in a Church and When Should I Leave One?"

As covered in the Intro to GQA, under “Not All Questions Carry Equal Weight: The ‘Essentials–Convictions–Opinions Chart’”, how much importance to give to one’s answer to the title question is complex because it necessarily involves a whole host of doctrinal matters beyond a narrow definition of ecclesiology.¹ So, simply by virtue of this one point–that the church we choose has massively important ramifications for almost everything about one’s understanding of salvation in Christ, the basics of Christian belief, and how to live the Christian life–I’d say it’s definitely an “essential.”

Now, what I do not mean to say is that different models for church governance, per se, (single-elder-led congregational, plural-elder-led congregational, democratic congregational, presbyterian, episcopal, denominational, nondenominational, one-service, one-site-multiple-services, multiple-sites-and-services, etc.) are “essentials,” as if one cannot become or grow as a Christian in some other form of church structure, governance, or polity.² In other words, because God’s grace is the actual operative means of salvation and the Holy Spirit is the worker of heart change, one can become a Christian and learn many wonderful truths about Christ and His work under teaching or church structure that are in some measure errant, as literally every Christian does in our fallen world. However–and this is a significant caveat–this shouldn’t encourage us to eschew the search for a biblical church model and faithful Bible-centered teaching! That the Holy Spirit can change hearts despite errant human teaching isn’t a good argument for being unwise! So, since so much rides on what local church one chooses, I’m sticking with today’s GQA holding “essential” importance until shown differently.

There is an important distinction to notice embedded in this GQA’s title question that narrows its scope—“What Should I Look for in a Church?” We are not talking here about the “universal” church, which is the group of all true Christians throughout all time who are known only to God, but “a” particular church—a “local” church—which is a group of believers who are also known to each other and who build and share Christian community. In the New Testament, of the 115 occurrences of the word “church,” (Greek ekklesia, an “assembly” of those "called out" from the world), at least 93, and perhaps at least a few more, explicitly refer to the gathering of believers rather than to an ungathered or unknown-to-us universal church-at-large or even to individual believers.³ The Scriptures do not have a category for “member-at-large of the universal church” who is not also a member of a local church. Here’s a good summary of the distinction and relationship between the universal and local church:


This is worth more than passing mention because the unprecedented levels of modern luxury, technology, and personal control snooker many into the illusion that being a member-at-large in the universal church is a viable option without also being part of a local church, as if being known to God but not other Christians qualifies as being part of the body of Christ. Sorry, but that’s not Bible in any meaningful sense that can be called faithful to its intent. At that point, you might as well just rip out half of the New Testament and start your own cult. Just don’t call it biblical Christianity. Rather, it is a selfish and consumeristic standpoint epistemology that tailors personal spiritual experience according to your comfort more than God's design for your holiness and His glory. The church, like anything that is actually helpful for one’s growth, isn’t there to serve and cater to you. It’s there to train and equip you for fruitful mission. And you can’t do that anonymously, from afar, without meaningful participation, and with little investment.

So if you consider yourself a member of the universal church but not a particular church with the “Essential Marks” which follow, the Bible has some questions to ask you: To what persons are you meaningfully accountable for your Christian growth, doctrinal fidelity, service that fits your gifts, generosity, and learning to submit your heart and mind more faithfully to God by being regularly engaged in worship? Who are your Elders? Who are those responsible to discipline you? Who are those responsible to feed you from God’s Word? Where are you learning to be more fruitfully part of God’s Kingdom mission by hearing the regular feedback of other believers? Who are those in the body into whom you are pouring your life for the sake of their growth? And can you do all those things and more (i.e., the “Essential Marks” below) by yourself, without a formal, public, and clear commitment to an actual group of believers who likewise understand their commitment to you and submission to Elders who lead by the Word of God? In case it’s not clear, the answer is: “No. It is… Literally. Impossible.”

So by "church," we are not referring here to a mish-mash of this celebrity preacher you watch, that church's music you enjoy, this Bible Study you like, and that youth group in which your kids feel most accepted, but to “a” (i.e., “one”) particular local church where the many parts of the body of Christ are working and visible, including yours.

(Click here to go to “H3: Connect in a small group.” and read more about how we define “meaningful participation” at FCC. Also, see this previous GQA re “Is Church Membership Biblical?”)

So, what is a local church and what are its defining characteristics? Here’s a one-pregnant-sentence answer from the Bible: From eternity past, God the Father’s wise plans (Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:10; Acts 1:7: Romans 16:25-27; 2 Timothy 1:9) were to glorify His Son (John 17:1, 5, 22, 24; 1 Corinthians 1:19-25) in history by constituting a people for Himself (Ephesians 2:10; Deuteronomy 7:6-8; 32:5), calling them out⁵ (1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1) of the world and their sin by the gospel of grace (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 2:4-9) and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5, 8), that they would witness to His Kingdom, power, and glory as the sanctified body of Christ (Acts 1:8; 14:21-22; Romans 1:16-17; 12:1-5; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Ephesians 1; 2:10; 13-16; 19-22; 4:1-5:21; Hebrew 9:14-15).

Because the church is God’s idea—initiated by Him as revealed in His Word—from generation to generation it has sought to align its practice accordingly such that its rediscovery of purpose is not discovering something previously hidden but learning to embody a faithful witness to God’s glory. This nuance isn’t semantics—it is the difference between human innovation that builds on sand and submitting ourselves to God’s wisdom for building on His Word!

As early as the first chapter of Acts, after Jesus told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem to wait for the Father to send the promised Holy Spirit, this concern was why they asked Him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6)? Sure, it turned out to be the wrong question. Indeed, they could hardly have been more wrong in their hope that Jesus the long-awaited Messiah would return Israel to its former religious glory and sociopolitical power. But perhaps most glaring was their unawareness that new life in Christ meant they themselves would carry on the work, as those who were learning to embody a faithful witness to God’s glory. Notice Jesus’ response in Acts 1:7-8 to their question from verse 6: 7 “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority,” i.e., ‘Don’t worry about when and what will come at the end times when the Father brings a new heavens and earth,’ 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Jesus is telling them that following Him meant getting to work. Then, immediately, as if to highlight the point, Jesus ascended to be with the Father: ‘It’s your turn, y’all. Carry on the work.’ Ever since, gathered Christians have continually endeavored to clearly understand and faithfully articulate who they are and what they are to do in light of God’s character and work in Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. (For more teaching on Acts 1:6-11, see the first half of this sermon, “What is a Multisite Church and Why Are We One?”)

Even in our own more immediate history as Protestants, because the Reformation of the early 1500s was at center a reformation of the authority of the Scriptures (“sola scriptura,” the “formal principle,”⁶ over against the unbiblical papal authority of the Roman Catholic Church,) there was a great deal of discussion among the Reformers about what constitutes a “true church.” John Calvin said, and Martin Luther agreed: “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists.”⁷ Though their application of sola scriptura resulted in other characteristics of the church like the priesthood of all believers, leadership of pastors, elders, and deacons, and church discipline, the Reformers held that correct teaching of God’s Word and proper administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as gospel-centered signs of entrance into Christ, were such centrally defining characteristics of a true church that they believed it worth dividing if not present.

So what are the “essentials” that must be present?

Note: As of July 2022, this section is still slowly emerging from the often tortuous process of stealing, borrowing, and adapting, (from the Bible, various commentaries (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary (Comm) on the New/Old Testament (NT/OT), Baker Exegetical Comm NT, ESV Exegetical Comm, New Int'l Comm NT/OT, New Int'l Greek Testament Comm, Pillar NT Comm, to name a few favorites), quite a few different Systematic Theologies (mostly Grudem, Culver, and Berkhof, at this point), 9Marks.org, gotquestions.org, etc.) to being genuinely ‘from me’ (though I hold that human ideas are never truly genuine because “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) and if they are true, they are true because they derive from God’s character and nature.) Also, as mentioned in the Intro to GQA, the following is more deductive argumentation, from general to specifics, and will assume I’ve done my homework without being able to show you all of it.

(2) Expository Preaching
You may hear from some Christian traditions that the church created the Bible. Roman Catholics, for example, hold to this conviction as warrant for their claim to be the one true apostolic church that is authoritative over against the Scriptures and orthodox interpretation thereof.⁸ But that is a myopic misunderstanding of the essential character of the Bible as divinely preserved and inspired revelation (2 Peter 1:19-21; 2 Timothy 3:14-16). The truth is exactly the opposite—the Word of God is the power that created and sustains the church. In fact, we see the power of God’s Word from the very beginning in that He:

¹ Ecclesiology roughly means ”church study,“ and is used to refer to one’s framework, or theology, of the church.

² ”Polity” refers to the method of governance, especially how power is distributed among leaders to care for those under their charge.

³ Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical, (Geanies House, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus), 914. Because the “universal” church is truly known only to God and New Testament usage almost exclusively refers to “local” churches, some theological traditions believe that the New Testament never truly speaks to the “universal” church but only of it and only by implication of human reason and not by explicit didactic revelation. I think they’re more right than most realize.

⁴ R. Stanton Norman, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church, (Nashville: B&H), 114.

⁵ The ekklesia, predominantly translated as our modern word for the local “church,” is the assembly of those “called out” from the world.

⁶ For more about sola scriptura, watch this Brown Bags & Bibles episode. For a really helpful explanation of what is meant by the “formal principle” (and likewise, the “material principle”), read this brief article: “Why Do We Call Them the ‘Formal’ and ‘Material’ Principles of the Reformation?” For the record, though the material principle of justification by grace (sola gratia) through faith (sola fide) was also a motivating factor for the Reformers’ claim to have rediscovered the “true church,” for our purposes, sola scriptura is more germane as the Bible is where we find the church’s definition and purpose.

⁷ Calvin, Institutes, 4.1.9. Re Luther’s agreement, Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession, a Lutheran statement of faith, says, “the congregation of saints in which the gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered.” Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof summarizes it thus: “The Reformation was a reaction against the externalism of Rome in general, and in particular, also against its external conception of the Church. It brought the truth to the foreground once more that the essence of the Church is not found in the external organization of the Church, but in the Church as the communio sanctorum. For both Luther and Calvin the Church was simply the community of the saints, that is, the community of those who believe and are sanctified in Christ, and who are joined to Him as their Head.” https://ref.ly/o/stberkhof/1646928?length=520

⁸ https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/catholics-and-the-bible

⁹ While I think a verse-by-verse pattern of preaching through a book of the Bible is best and helps ensure we are submitting to the Scriptures as God revealed them to us rather than a more topical format where cherry-picking verses more easily runs the risk of allowing man-centered felt needs to direct interpretation, because the preaching form is not explicitly commanded and valid arguments can be made to the contrary, I would characterize these as “convictional” issues and not “essential.” (See fccgreene.org/introtogqa#ecochart for more.)

¹⁰ This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all possibly important principles, but a representative list of some particularly important factors to consider when looking for a biblically-centered church or determining church health.

¹¹ Meaning is primarily determined by using normal grammatico-historical and redemptive-historical methods that prioritize plain sense exegesis deriving from and tested against Scripture’s interpretation of itself. [By aforementioned "redemptive-historical methods," we mean those a là Geerhardus Vos’ biblical-theological and covenantal “History of Special Revelation,” as distinct from the older “redemptive-historical” heilsgeschichte (“salvation history”) and heilsgeschichtlich (“salvation-historical”) methods, which are a subset of the "historical-critical" (or "higher critical") models, which are to be, on the whole rejected, though they can provide ancillary and comparative insight. See “What is historical criticism?” for more. [For more, see the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, especially Articles III-VI, VIII, XIII, XV, XVII-XIX, and “Skepticism and Criticism” (top of p 10.)] If all the above sounds like gobbly-gook to you, see “What is the difference between exegesis and eisegesis?” for a brief overview of the basic interpretive issues involved.

¹² I’ve chosen “saving grace” to distinguish it from cheap, intellectual, or human-initiated grace, and as a mediating term that establishes that we’re talking—at least generically and in terms with which all Christians agree—about true repentant faith that results in spiritual fruit and that also allows for “1689ers” (holding to the 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession, the1689confession.com) and Reformed/Covenantal folks like me to hold to “effectual grace/calling” as part of the so-called “doctrines of grace” (see Episode #36 of BB&B on “Call” for more).