Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we're all about providing sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and on today's episode, I want to talk to you about the difference between church shopping and church hopping. Now, maybe you've heard both terms and you think both of them sound like the same thing, but it's really important to make a distinction, and I want to offer a definition for each. You know, a friend of mine who is very faithful in the local church and has not been known for bouncing around based on his preferences or the preferences of his wife expressed his shame as he and his wife are in the middle of trying to find a new local church. He said to me almost with an embarrassed whisper, you know, we're currently church shopping, and I feel terrible about it. He was expressing his discomfort with the fact that a lot of people bounce from church to church and they are basing their bouncing around on consumeristic preferences, and he doesn't want to be labeled one of those types of Christians. That got me thinking. There is a difference between church shopping and church hopping. Let me define the difference, at least in my own mind, and present this to you. Church shopping is a lot like grocery shopping. Here's what I mean: it's not merely consumerism, it's the idea that you have a very specific set of ingredients that you are looking for so you can make the right meal and a healthy meal at that. You've thought about what you're looking for, and with regards to a church, your list is from Scripture, and you're actively and humbly shopping around to find a specific church that meets a criteria based on biblical convictions. As you shop around, you are fair and you are humble, you visit different churches, and a church will get nexted if it doesn't meet the biblical criteria. Or you land on a church because it's the right fit. It's not a consumeristic bouncing around basing everything on your feelings, your opinion. It's really looking for a specific set of ingredients. You are shopping actively for the right church, and when you find it or the closest thing to it, you land. Church hopping, I would liken to bouncing around from church to church, hopping, if you will, based on consumeristic preferences. You aren't shopping to find ingredients for a meal. You are hopping around to suit your fancy. Now we've all been there before, perhaps. Maybe you grew up in an awesome church and you never had to do this, but a lot of us have been through this process. And maybe we've thought before, oh, I really like the music. You know, it's well produced and it sounds awesome. It's like listening to the radio and the preacher's cool. So we go to that church. But then, you know, there's another church that we heard about or we visited with a friend, and they have a really nice facility, so we hop over there for a bit. But then the students program is really fun at another church. So even though at that church the teaching is shallow and the music is kind of just like a laser light concert that gives you vertigo, your teen is rocking in there, and so who cares? At least they want to go to church. And then maybe a couple of years later have gone by and you heard that the women's ministry at another church is all the rage. So you go over there. And and mom kind of says to everyone, hey, it's my turn to pick the new church. It's my turn to get what I want. You know, like picking a different fast food restaurant on the cross country road trip of life. You hop from church to church to church based on preferences, whose turn it is to pick their own personal fancy. Entertainment plays in, comforts play in, and consumer driven pursuits. My dear friends, this is not helpful for your sanctification. This is not healthy for your family's growth in all the right ways. It's not helpful for your personal holiness as you grow in the word and you put down roots in a place that begins to hold you accountable. It's not good for your self-discipline, your maturity, your witness, or let's go further, your ability to grow and become the leader God has called you to be in both your family and in your church. Think about this for a second. I want to share my perspective as a church planter. I'm always looking for people who are willing to serve and lead and jump in, people that I can give responsibility to, people that I can pour into and raise up. And I'm not looking for fair weather types that base everything on their preferences. I'm looking for faithful folks that have their heads on straight when it comes to local church perspective. Let me give you a little hint here. Who are pastors looking for? What makes for healthy church members? Who do leaders want leading small groups and teams and ministries? Who does the church want to give away responsibility to? Well, to people who pick a church for the right reasons and then stick around long enough to help the church become all that God intends it to be by serving and giving and unifying and discipling and sacrificing and building and loving the church and a local church at that, like Jesus. Like a marriage, committing to the right church is a decision you make with your mind, not merely your emotions. Now it might feel wonderful, you might feel refreshed and you might feel the feels, but friend, your mind is the part of you that decides and commits and sticks it out when the emotions are gone. Faithful marriages last because two people commit to sticking it out through thick and thin. They don't look at the next shiny object and chase it. Their love runs deeper than shallow superficial consumerism. And this is how we should love a church and why it's important to land on the right church. Now, I've done other episodes, and you can look through the list on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this, and you can look at the episode on, you know, when it's time to leave a church. I've given a criteria. There are certainly good and godly and biblical reasons to make your way out of a certain local church. And that process should be done with sensitivity and with grace and with truth. But if you are hopping around, I want to encourage you, it's time to land. And if you're shopping for the right church, I want you to land right. Finding the right church can be a daunting task, but knowing what to look for can be a huge advantage, even if it takes some time to find it, and that might be an encouraging thing for a lot of you who maybe worry about it taking long. You know what? Don't rush. Because when you land, land right. Take your time, ask questions. Don't be a nuisance or rude about it, but really seek to understand the church. I can think of one uh one of our church members in particular. She's a wonderful sister who has been such a blessing to our church. When she first considered joining our church plant, she sent me an email, and there was, uh, I might be exaggerating here, so roll with me, but a dozen is not an exaggeration. Maybe twenty or more might be an exaggeration, but it was a lot of questions. And in this email, there were questions about everything you can imagine elder structure, how we choose leaders, music selections, theology, doctrine, all of these distinct things. And I thought whoever this gal is, she was raised right because she was asking big questions. I didn't feel like she was kicking our tires in a rude way. I didn't feel like she was suspect of us. I got the sense that this sister wanted to know what kind of church we were, so when she lands, she lands all in with both feet. Actually, a lot of her questions became the FAQ on our church website because I thought they were such helpful questions that, man, we should put these on the website, and now people who have questions can go there first, and maybe a lot of those questions get answered before they even walk in the door. When we're talking about finding the right church, we're not talking about picking a church with the fanciest building or one that even is right next to your house. The best church might be the church that is further from your home than other churches. I want to give you six important elements here that should prioritize your decision. And you could consider this a primer. I would hope, if you're a biblically minded, discerning Christian, that you add to this as well. But here are some biblical marks. Number one, look for a church that regularly practices expository preaching. This approach to preaching involves breaking passages down verse by verse. It's going to go through books of the Bible rather than just jumping all over the place with whatever cultural fancy is going down. It doesn't mean that the church won't ever do topical messages. There are very important topics we should cover. But a church that prioritizes expository preaching isn't going to leave out important passages or skip the hard parts of the Bible because you're going verse by verse. And so when the pastor comes to the next verse and the set of verses, he is going to deal with it. And you're going to be a stronger, more biblically minded Christian. An expository preacher is going to illustrate in his sermons. He will apply his sermons, but he's likely not going to be pacing the stage telling stories and pumping out fortune cookie one-liners without ever breaking down the text. When you leave an expository sermon, you're likely going to think, I think I know more about that particular text than I did before. Or I was reminded of things that I knew, but my heart is stirred regarding those truths again. Now, it's really important to realize that personality is going to vary. Expositors, the preachers who exposite the text, they're going to have different personalities. You may have heard it said before, we hear this often in seminary and different preaching coursework, that preaching is truth mediated through personality. And so if a guy is a little more mellow than you are, but he preaches the Bible faithfully, that's a church you might want to land on. That's good. And maybe a guy is a little more passionate and animated and he gets a little fired up. That's kind of the way I am. And you're one of those people that doesn't like a lot of emotion and too much passion or any passion makes you feel like they're trying to manipulate you or it's not genuine. Well, if a man is preaching the truth, he might be loud or quiet, mellow or fired up. If he's giving you the word, you are going to be well fed. Expository preaching is very important. Basic question that we all should be asking as preachers. Does the Bible use me to preach its message, or do I use the Bible to preach my own message? Expository preaching focuses on what the Bible wants to say. Number two, male only pastors and elders. In today's church, a lot of people are caving to the culture. They're scared to let the Bible speak on what is called complementarianism. Now I've done a past episode on whether or not women can be pastors or elders, and we always want to be loving and fair. And this is not a sexist, chauvinistic approach to church ministry. It refers to God's design for men and women in the home and in the church. Men are supposed to be loving, qualified, sacrificial leaders who follow the model of Jesus, and women are to be served, cared for, protected, and loved to fulfill their ministry in the church as well. Both have distinct roles so that the church can function effectively. Just like a baseball team needs the right fielder to stay in right field and the first baseman to play first base, God calls men and women to play their position so that the team can win. The church has, in many cases here in today's culture, compromised on the simple truth found in 1 Timothy 2.12 when Paul the Apostle was giving a clear structure for church leadership and church authority. When he says, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. He also lays out the qualifications of an elder in 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7. And he specifically says that an elder will be the quote husband of one wife. In all of the New Testament, there is not one female elder or female pastor. No text says that she must be the wife of one husband. When the church gives in on this issue, they are disobeying the plain text of Scripture. They are compromising. And I know that there will be scholars and many people who debate over this. It's called complementarianism versus egalitarianism. Complementarianism is that we complement one another in our roles. Men and women are spiritual equals, but they have specific roles. And by the way, this doesn't mean that all men are pastors and all men are elders and we dominate all the women. It means that specific men are qualified to serve in that role. And it's not just anybody. A lot of churches today will call women pastors by nature of the term. I was talking to a friend who I love very much in this region here in Arizona. And he said, well, we use the term pastor as more of a shepherding term because, you know, the sisters may shepherd others as well. Or we have a women's ministry leader and we call her the women's pastor. Other people may have a woman who is the children's uh director and they'll call her the children's pastor because of Titus 2, 3 through 5, where Paul says that women can teach other women and they can teach children. And so they'll call, you know, her pastor Susan or Pastor whoever, Pastor Kathy, and Pastor Jolene because she's the pastor of women or the pastor of children. Well, to use the term poeman in that way is again outside of Scripture. And at the very least, it's confusing people in today's culture who aren't really sure what you mean. So we should just let the text speak. When a church tries to play that game, I believe, and I say this respectfully, still clearly, they are trying to cave to the culture or capitulate so that they appear more likable and more palatable. This is not going to lead to a healthy church culture. It's not going to be the kind of church you want to be under long term, because if they will compromise on that, it is very likely that they will compromise in other ways. The plain text of scripture drives the bus here. Again, if you've never heard of that or never want, never talked about it or dove deep into it, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to the episode that I did titled, Is it biblical for women to be pastors elders and study scripture and make a decision on that? Third, find a church that is discipleship focused. Making disciples is one of the primary tasks of the church and it's part of the Great Commission. So if a church doesn't focus on it, you're not going to grow as much as you could at a church that does prioritize that. You're not designed, friend, to just show up for 60 minutes a week and then go live Lone Ranger Christianity. You are designed to be taught and sharpened and grown and pushed and loved and cared for and cultivated as a believer. And so we would fire a coaching staff on a team who failed to invest in its players and take them to the next level. We'd fire a gym trainer who didn't make us a bit sore and push our bodies to new limits. So why settle for a church that doesn't push you to be a true disciple and then provide you with opportunities to grow? At our church, we have a few different opportunities. One in particular that we push hard and push our staff and our team and myself and our pastors to raise leaders up in his shepherd groups because I know that Sunday's not enough. We want people to have midweek opportunities to connect, to grow, to be taught, to disciple. And so we have a number of different types of groups for men, for women, for couples, for families and beyond. And that is something we're always trying to add to. Why? Well, because discipleship matters. It's not just a Sunday show and go thing. We want to be walking through life together. Number four, look for a church that is evangelistically driven. The church is plan A. Jesus could have returned or just skipped the whole section of history we're in right now, taking us straight up to heaven, but he left us on earth to be salt and light. In John 10 16, Jesus says, I have other sheep, and he's referring to those who he's still going to save. Well, who do you think he uses to reach them? You, me, the church. Romans 10 17 says, Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ. And so pick a church that preaches the gospel, that loves the gospel. Pick a church that equips and encourages its members to go out and share the gospel and to invite people. Imagine if you could attend a church where when you bring a friend, it's more likely than not that they're going to hear the good news of the gospel, whether through the music and the preaching, through interacting with people there. And unfortunately, too many conservative churches act like the frozen chosen. They sit around content to have good theology and just wait for Jesus to come back. Or because they teach well about the sovereignty of God, people start thinking, well, since God is sovereign in salvation, I guess he'll do it all. And they don't invite people to church and they don't actively share the gospel. That's a form of hyper-Calvinism. That is not a proper view of the sovereignty of God. We should be evangelistic, we should have a zeal for sharing the gospel because why? Well, we know God is sovereign in saving people. We also know He's commanded us to share the gospel. And so I would ask this if you have really good theology, but you lack evangelistic passion, uh you may not have really good theology. Good theology turns into passionate evangelism. Why? Well, because you have right knowledge, you have a proper understanding of God, and you are stirred with that knowledge. What, to just know a bunch and be puffed up? No. To go and take the truth to people who need it. Number five, priority on doctrine. If a church says, you know, who cares about theology, you know, let's just love people. So kind of the other way. Some people say, oh, it's all about theology, but they never evangelize. Well, there's people who go, well, let's just love people, you know, who cares about theology? That's a church that's not going to feed you faithfully. The church does not exist to be a social club. We don't exist to just do superficial acts of kindness in the name of some ambiguous love without giving people the doctrinal truth that saves them and grows them. A faithful church doesn't shy away from making a big deal about doctrine because as Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4 16, pay close attention to yourself, that's your life, and your teachings or your doctrine. Persevere in these things, he tells Timothy. This is a good thing for a pastor, he's saying, he's saying, for as you do, you will ensure salvation, both for yourself and those who hear you. Paul tells Timothy, careful with doctrine and holiness. These things are going to have a big impact on your church. The church does not need more sermons filled with just general stories and humor and you know three ways to be a better whatever. We need to be fed doctrine. Doctrine gives us a solid foundation in Christ. Number six, no false ecumenical unity with false religions. Now, you might think this is an odd one, but it's a huge trend in the modern church and it's taking the church by storm, and so I'm going to put it in my list. Because we've downplayed doctrine, ecumenical unity is on the rise, and it's something that you need to be discerning about. If a church says that, you know, Catholics and Mormons or other religions that preach a different gospel are in the family tree of Christianity, that is not a church you should be in. They have bought the cultural lie that truth is relative and that doctrine just divides us. Many of them, I can only imagine, might be trying to be more attractive to people so they can keep making money, keep people coming, and stay afloat. So they'll say things like, you know, let's just lay our doctrinal differences aside and come together as one. Well, that's fine if we have the same gospel and the same Jesus. But Jesus says in Matthew 10 that he came to bring a sword, and he was referring to the fact that he is a dividing line. Yes, he is love, and yes, his church should be loving. But there can be no unity where essential truth has been cast aside. Ask the pastors of a church you're visiting if they believe that Roman Catholicism is a genuine form of Christianity, or if they believe, you know, Roman Catholics are, you know, across the board saved. Ask them if they think a true believer can stay in a false religion. Ask them if they think Mormonism is a true form of Christianity. And ask them about any other divergent theology that you can think of or maybe that you came from. If the pastor can't give you a clear yes or at least explain things in biblical terms, I would recommend you do not settle there. Those are six marks to help you. I think all six would be very applicable in today's world. Again, you could uh look at other ones, and if you're more of a Baptist and you think people should be immersed in water and that babies shouldn't be baptized, that may be on your list, or maybe you believe strongly about your eschatology, so the end times matters to you, or other other theological frameworks. That's all good and well, and you should have those things laid out. Maybe uh a student ministry for teenagers is important, maybe global missions is important. Again, all of these things can be added to your list, but mine is framed to target churches today in specific ways. We are seeing massive abandonment of discipleship in the name of pragmatism. We are seeing compromise regarding pastors and elders and who can play that role. We are seeing a lot of kind of Joel Osteenism just sitting up there like a motivational speaker and not text-driven preaching. We're seeing the abandonment of sharing the gospel. We're seeing a downplaying of doctrine, and we are seeing a lot of compromise with ecumenical unity, false unity with Roman Catholics, Mormons, and the like. It is so important that you be discerning when choosing a church. I hope you land on the right one, and I hope that you spend a lot of time in prayer, remembering there is no perfect church. There are only ones that are trying to faithfully make progress for the glory of God. And that's the kind of church I hope you land in. Thanks for listening. Uh, for more on this topic and a lot of great material regarding the local church, I'd invite you to join me in Dallas, Texas at Countryside Bible Church for a conference on the church this February 2023. If you're listening to this after that date, then uh go to countrysidebible.org and check out the footage there from the conference you can learn. I'll be joining Pastor Tom Pennington, H.B. Charles, and Pastor Phil DeCourcy as we help Christians from all walks of life understand the church and how to fulfill your purpose in the church. And also as a resource to you, be sure to check out a children's book that my wife and I just wrote to help your kids learn about prayer. It's titled In Jesus' Name I Pray, TJ the Squirrel Learns the True Heart of Prayer. It's a tool you can use to teach your kids about prayer. For loads of free resources to spur you on in sound doctrine, go to www.forthegospel.org and be sure to follow for the gospel on every social media platform. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel.