What Makes A Church?
Finding a church home is one of the most important decisions you can make. A church will guide and shape how you serve God and grow in your faith. It will nurture your growth and give you tools to help spread God's word. It will sustain you through difficulties and share in your joys. If you are listening, God will guide you to the church where you are meant to be, but it helps to know what qualities you are looking for.
What defines and makes a good church?
- A Solid Biblical Foundation A carpenter knows that you can only build a safe and secure home on a solid foundation. Your church home should be built on the foundation of God's word.
- Worship A church home should celebrate and glorify God through prayer, music, and experience of the Holy Spirit.
- Edification The word for edification in Greek translates as "the building of a house". A church home, its pastors, sermons, and other members should edify and build up its congregation in Christ.
- Evangelism A church does not exist solely for the benefit of its members. It should facilitate the spreading of God's word to those who need it most.
- Community One of God's gifts to us is the ability to come together and find fellowship in our faith. A church home should surround you and your family through life's joys and victories as well as sorrows and difficulties.
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.(Matthew 7:24-25, KJV)
O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.(Isaiah 25:1, KJV)
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.(Romans 14:19, KJV)
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.(Mark 16:15, KJV)
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.(1 John 1:7, KJV)