 If you're anything like me, you've grown tired of trendy churches. Churches that prioritize making their worship seem more like an MTV music award performance than actual just worship to God, or churches that have TED talks rather than sermons rooted in the Word of God, or churches that are more consumed with expanding their brand than just discipleship and evangelism. Over the last few years, I've been in church transition, which basically means that I've been looking for a church. And yes, it's not that hard to find a church. I mean, you just type in church in Google and you're going to have tens and tens of results. The problem is, is that those churches, you don't really know what they believe and they often don't stand for the same things. So my question over the last few years that I've been asking myself is, how do you find a good church and what even is a good church? I'm going to answer those questions in a second, but for those of you who are doubting the necessity of being a part of a local congregation, let's take a look at Hebrews 10 and let us consider how we might spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. And Colossians as well, let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. So the gathering of the church should be a place where we encourage one another towards love and good deeds, where we teach and admonish those to have Christ's message dwell in us richly and where we sing songs of praise to God. So being a part of a church body is important. I hope you can agree. But there are a lot of challenges that go with trying to get connected as a young adult, because this is kind of a stage where things are unpredictable or uncertain or just unsteady. You might be going to school in one city and come back for the summer, you know, into another city or hometown. Maybe your work schedule is kind of crazy and you just have a hard time making sure that you carve out those spaces or maybe you're not even able to with the job that you're at. There are different seasons of life that make it more complicated to get connected. And I totally realize that. But at the same time, what I've realized for myself is it's not just about showing up for a sermon and singing some songs and staying for kind of the service. It's about being in a place where people know you and where they can encourage you and where you can be accountable to them. That's a huge aspect of it as well. And that's kind of really why I want to get connected. So for me, I wanted to get out of this church hopping stage as quickly as possible. And that's kind of where the journey began. I just want to say, though, before moving forward, because I know we can get caught up in the space of like, I need to find this perfect church or I want to find this perfect church or the grass is always greener type situation. And that can be really challenging and tough if you get caught into that trap. And so I just want to say, like, OK, make sure you're approaching this church hunt with the right motives. It's not just, oh, what can I get from it? Or how can my needs be met? It's like, how can I can I actually see myself in this body building it up? With all that being said, here's step one, research, compile a list and put necessary info into a spreadsheet. So you guys might not know this aspect of who I am, but I love to keep things organized. So I love spreadsheets. I'm kind of like a spreadsheet fiend. So when I get an opportunity to, you know, crack open another one, I get so excited. So for this, it's like, OK, let me get all the different churches that I'm checking out or that I've heard of and put them all in a spreadsheet and have all these different criteria. Like, OK, you know, when does their service meet? How far away are they? Do they have a young adults group? All sorts of things like that. And so how do I find these different churches? For me, one of the biggest tactics that worked well was going to Google Maps and just typing in church and literally like kind of like scrolling on the map to see the churches in my area. What I realized was that not all churches call themselves a church or they don't have church in their title. So then I put in things like faith, grace from there. I'm going to their website. I'm checking out the first thing that's kind of on their header of their web page and, you know, keeping them back in my mind, you know, this is what they want to be known for. But you know, I'm heading right to what we believe. And generally, these statements are pretty broad, but you want to make sure they have all the essentials. Who is Jesus? Who is God? What about repentance? What about hell? What about salvation? A lot of these core elements with the Trinity. I'm missing some stuff, but, you know, like, you got to get those fundamentals in there. Now, as I alluded to at the beginning, I'm really trying to avoid some of these trendy churches. That's not my vibe. That's not what I want to be a part of. But sometimes I wonder what if like a first century Christian visited one of these trendy churches? Hey, welcome to Prosper Church. This is Prosper Church campus number one, where it all began back in 2010. What is all this? Oh, of course. Right over there is our newly installed coffee bar sponsored by Starbucks. You can get all the same drinks. You can get there in their stores. You can get that here. What is Starbucks? Oh, yeah. And we have a bookstore and gift shop area right back there. We just got Pastor Larry's bobbleheads in. You'll want to pick up one of those before you leave. They did such a good job on the goatee. They got it absolutely perfect. Will we be worshiping together? For sure. I mean, we have a professional band that'll play later and they play all the hottest songs by Maverick City and Elevation. We crank up the music so loud that you can't hear yourself sing. So don't worry if you can't follow along. That's why we leave it to the professionals. What? You've lost your salt. Not sure what that means, but I'm going to take it as a compliment. Hope to see you at the event center in about 10 minutes for the worship experience. I'm digging those sandals, by the way. I got to get me a pair. Hmm, it was scarier than I thought. Anyway, so I compiled some of the churches that I was interested in based on their website and onto my spreadsheet. And obviously there are a lot of questions that had gone unanswered because I'd have to actually, you know, go to the church in order to find out. So that's step number two. Now for me, going to a new church can be a really exciting experience, but it's also a pretty anxiety producing experience. New people, new building, new location. How do I get there? What if I arrive late? What if I don't know what to say or it's awkward or whatever? But, you know, you got to put that aside and you just got to step out and do your thing. And that's what I did. So when I'm going to these new churches, I'm trying to keep an open mind, not be too judgy, because look, first impressions aren't everything. But on one occasion I ventured into a church and it looked something like this. Hey, welcome to Prosper Church. Hey, I'm new to this church. How long do your church services usually go? Oh, you mean the worship experience? Sure, about an hour or so. Okay, how long is the sermon? Usually, you mean the Tim Talk. The what? Yeah, the Tim Talk presented by CEO, entrepreneur, international speaker and businessman, and the senior pastor of our church, Tim Flegenstein. So how long is the Tim Talk? Oh, about half an hour. Do you guys have any small groups or? Yes, absolutely. Our community crusaders groups. Okay, well, it's kind of an unfortunate name, but where are your guys washrooms? Oh yeah, for sure. Actually, here we call them the cleansing closets. They're actually right over there. Okay, that is the last straw. I'm leaving. But you haven't even had a drink yet from our Colombian bean juice patio. That's a coffee shop. I'm done. I don't get it. Why did they change the names of everything just to be cool? It's like, okay, whatever. Anyway, so attending a new church can be a lot of fun, but here are just some questions that I tried to ask myself as I was barking on this new experience. Is the sermon a motivational talk with a Bible verse as a cherry on top? Or is it the main meal? Does the worship draw your heart in awe of Christ or in awe of the worship leader? What areas could you see yourself serving at this church? There's so many more questions that I asked myself, but these are just some of the ones that I thought of right now. Here's some kind of essential criteria categories that you can think about as you're going to a new church. Worship, what's worship like? What's teaching like? What are their doctrine or core beliefs? What's the community like? What's the atmosphere around that? How do people get together? Fellowship, what does that look like? Service, what are the service opportunities? And location is kind of an add-on, but for me, I really value living semi-close to the church because then you have the kind of the community around that you're living in and you're ministering to. That's just an ideal situation to me. Okay, but I beg of you, as you're going to a new church, don't make this mistake, because I've seen this happen so often, people going to a new church and then right after the service ends, they leave. They're like, well, I gotta head to watch the NFL football game or I gotta head to a brunch or whatever else. It's like, no, you're like missing the core time that you have to figure out what this church actually is because look, the conversations that people are having at the end, like that tells you a lot of what the church is about. What are the members talking about? And for me, that was really telling an important time to get to know people and actually make a decision of do I wanna set up shop here? So stay, I'm an introvert. I know how it is. You get scared and you're like, I don't wanna talk to these new people, but it's like, you gotta force yourself out of your shell for like, you know, 15, 20 minutes, talk to a couple new people. And ideally, my move is always like, hey, get me to like a young adult's pastor, somebody that can like kinda know who's a part of like the group and then they can introduce me to some people my age. And then you can get a sense of like, okay, what are other people my age? What kind of areas are they serving in? How long have they been at the church? What's their experience? Like you can get that one to one, but you need kind of that, well, you don't need it, but it is helpful to have the guide of kind of a young adult's pastor to introduce you to some folks. So that's been my move, but look, just put yourself out there. But you're a new person, people expect this. So fast forward, maybe you've been to one, two, maybe even three services and you're coming back, you've kind of honed down the churches that you're attending and you're kind of honing into one particular church. What is the next step? If you wanna get a real good sense of what the church is about, what is going on at the church, you've got to sit down with leadership. And I used to not wanna do this. Like I was too scared. I'm like, I don't need to talk to the pastor ever. Like he's too scary, he's too intimidating. Like I'll just do my thing, he'll do his thing. It's like, no, put yourself out there. Say, hey, like I'm new at the church. Do you wanna grab coffee sometime? I'd love to learn more about what the church is about. And pastors, they should be used to this or they should be open to this. Like if they're not or if they're so kind of like high and mighty, like kind of set apart from the rest of the congregation that you couldn't even think about like asking them out for coffee, that might be a telltale sign that maybe it's not the right church for you. I realize there's like big churches and pastors are always busy and you can have like grace and understanding and like, hey, you don't have to fit me in this week or next week. Like that's okay, I can wait. But at the same time, if there's not even an intentional effort put into trying to meet with new people that are interested, that's a red flag to me. For me, when I'm out with these guys, I just wanna get a sense of their temperament. You know, what are they passionate about? What direction is the church going? Is it growing or is it shrinking? Why do they think that's happening? What growth have they seen within their congregation from a spiritual perspective? What are they trying to focus on? What are their weak elements? And what are they strong at? Also, what does it take on some of the more controversial issues in our society today? Abortion, LGBTQ issues, critical race theory. Now, it's not about grilling these guys to get an answer, but you do wanna know where they stand. And you might be like, Isaac, why do you care so much about those issues? Does it really matter? Well, here's my conclusion. Outside of your family, your church is your main support system. So when you're out in the world, there are going to be times and more and more recently, I believe, that you are gonna need to stand on biblical truth and that is gonna cause some problems in your life. It just will, like, it'll, you know, you might be canceled from a spot. You might get fired from another spot. You might be shut out of different opportunities. You will be hated. I mean, that's just a promise that Jesus gives us when we stand on biblical truth, when we stand up for him. It's like, the world's gonna hate you. My question is, do you have that kind of support system even beyond your family to your church that is gonna stand behind you? Or are they gonna reject you just like the world when you stand up for biblical truth? That is a question that I'm asking myself as I'm putting out these videos that are really honing into a lot of the more touchy aspects of life and faith. It's like, I want a church that's gonna be like, yes, we support you. We affirm you. When the world cancels you, we're gonna be behind you. Like, that's the kind of church that I need and that's the kind of church that you need too. You really don't wanna set up shop on a church that is flimsy on things that matter. In conclusion, I just wanna encourage you guys to approach this with so much love and compassion and grace. Like, it can be really easy to approach these situations, go into these new churches, looking up things online to see what they believe and stuff like, to be like really like hyper-judgmental. It's important to judge. You need to judge because that's how we know what is right and what is wrong. So I'm not saying don't judge. What I'm saying is that realize that no church is perfect. There are churches that are gonna have flaws and there are churches that are gonna have major flaws that you need to not associate yourself with. But all churches have flaws. All churches have tough people within them that are tough to love. And you're probably one of those people too. Like I am too. So it's not like you're gonna approach this church and try to find all these great people that are just super perfect or whatever. It's like, you're not perfect. So don't even try to expect that. So I don't know. That's my encouragement to you guys. I'd love to know what you think about all this. What has been your experience with trying to find a church and what are some of the questions that you have or the things you think about as you approach this new journey. This video is brought to you by my patrons on Patreon. We are so close to reaching our next goal. So if you wanna support what I'm doing and helping people follow Jesus daily by producing this content, head to the link in my description and sign up to support me on a monthly basis. Thank you so much guys and I will see you next time. God bless.