What about church? (1)

I'm not so much thinking about looking for a church as thinking about what I'd be looking for if I was looking for a church. With a new year nearly upon us, perhaps it's a good time to consider these matters a little more intentionally.

Not that I'm about to go bouncing around from Sunday to Sunday in search of "the right fit." And neither am I holding out for perfection. I know there's an element in the Christian world that holds that not having a church--or, as they are just as likely to say, a church family--is a kind of crisis. Probably I'm just being selfish, or harboring sin, or who knows what, but it can't be good.

Going to church, in other words, is for these folks a key measure of spiritual health.

Well, maybe. Then again, maybe not. But anyway, although I'm pretty happy hanging out at home these Sunday mornings, I'm still liking the idea of church. It's a good New Testament idea, after all.

So I return to the original question: if I was looking for a church, what would I be looking for? In future posts I'm going to attempt to tease out a few answers to this question. So consider this the first in a series. In the meantime, here's Mark Driscoll preaching about something I intend to avoid like the plague: religion!


Heh. "We're all jacked up, Jesus. Can you help?"