Church Hopping or Church Shopping?

I hear that church hopping is a terrible thing.  We throw that word around often and want to prevent people from doing it.  The moment a new person/couple/family walk in the door of (insert almost any church name here) they are greeted by someone who asks a dozen questions about who they are and why they have come.  Some people even go so far to ask about history of church attendance, as if it makes a big deal about their attending (church name here) that day.  Not saying that wanting to win them to your team is a bad thing, but I wonder if we put too much concern into the hopping when they simply could be trying to discern where God wants them, another way of saying shopping.

I had to confront my own views on church hopping recently.  Believe me, there are plenty of articles on the internet about this topic and most of them say “don’t leave your church.” Here are some common themes that don’t really apply in my case:

• You are not involved in ministry. I was very active in my church, as was my husband.  I was called to be part of the youth ministry and my husband called to the worship team.  We both jumped in and volunteered at other times as well, when needed or asked.
• You are not being spiritually fed.  We were growing for a long time.  In fact, I personally have learned much about the connections between the Jewish culture, Christianity and why context can be important to understand when it comes to scripture.  Furthermore, I learned about many good authors and speakers such as Kyle Idleman and Priscilla Shirer.
• Size is too small or too big.  Not an issue for us here.  But I know from attending both a large church (prior to a move about 45 minutes away and our last church move) and a small church (the one we are leaving now) that no matter what size, each brings its own set of issues.
• Someone hurt your feelings.  We are all broken, sinful humans.  Everyone makes mistakes, including myself.  I have to forgive if I expect to be forgiven, and I have forgiven all intentional or unintentional hurts.  Besides, making any decision solely based on feelings is usually a bad decision.
• The music is (insert statement based on personal feelings here).  I blogged recently about music and the connection with evoking feelings.  Not to mention that prior to that I had blogged about how feelings of being disconnected have nothing to do with God’s presence.  Finally, see the point above about hurt feelings.

But I found one article to be truly uplifting and supportive of God’s calling away from a particular church.  In fact, I really like how they define church hopping not as someone searching for a church, but rather people who never settle down and develop close Christian relationships.  That is certainly not us.  We have several social engagements already on the calendar with some of the people from the church we are leaving, as well as churches we have attended in the past.  So what are we now?  Church shoppers.

I liken it to finding just the right couch.  When my husband and I moved into our apartment 2+ years ago, we decided to buy a new couch.  We visited several stores, sometimes 3 or more times trying same or different couches over and over.  Most were too tall for us (being only 5’2″ and 5’3″ makes couch shopping difficult in a world full of tall people), some were ugly, some not comfortable to sit in for long, and some were just out of our price range.  There was not one single perfect couch for us and once we admitted that, we were able to decide on what we could live with and what we couldn’t.  Sound familiar?

For that reason, I can comfortably say that I don’t ever expect to find a perfect church.  But, God has called us out of where we are for a reason.  Through careful prayer and discernment, we expect to find the church where He wants us to belong.  However, He has also made it clear that we are to maintain some of those special relationships we have built these last few years.  I am truly excited about where He is leading us because I know He has something awesome in store for us there.

So if you hear God calling you, it may be uncomfortable even, but I urge you to listen.  As long as you remain connected to a body of believers, have accountability partners, prayer support, and are truly seeking God’s will, then you are a church shopper, not a hopper.  Understand that sometimes God wants you to make a change.  “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ- to the Glory and Praise of God.”  Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)