Question from a retired pastor–
I recently retired from full-time ministry, and my wife and I find ourselves in the position of having to find a new church for the first time in 43 years. It’s not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Part of the problem may be our location. After spending the last 27 years of our ministry in a metro area of California, we retired to a small town in a nearby state. We’re close enough that we can easily visit our children and grandchildren, who still live in California. Problem: In our little town, there’s only one church of our denomination. We attended twice, and then because of Covid watched at least two dozen services online. Expository preaching is at the top of my list of what I’m looking for in a church, so we would not be happy going to this particular church. Then, we considered the other churches in town: one Methodist church, two Presbyterian churches, two Lutheran churches, two non-denominational churches, and one Catholic church. We’ve looked into each of them and so far, we don’t seem to have found where we belong. Some neighbors of our denomination drive nearly 50 miles to a larger city for church. With a population of 100,000 there are a couple of fine churches of our denomination. We may end up doing that too, but we’d prefer to belong to a church in our little town if possible.
What do we do?
I don’t like being in a position of having to be “critical” of churches, yet now that we’re looking for the church that will be our home, it’s hard not to look at them with a somewhat critical eye. So perhaps another way of framing my question would be, what should one look for in a church? What things are important? What things are not important?
An unsolicited note came this week. The retired pastor and I do not know each other and have never met. He asked if I had written anything on this subject. I said I have not but invited him to give a fuller description of his situation. The above is his response. Below is mine.