Being a pastor since 1962, I’ve not had to do something most of my friends have accomplished numerous times over these decades: look for a church home. Until last week.

On vacation, I spent a long weekend–Thursday night until Monday morning–with our daughter and her three girls in a lovely town in New Hampshire. One reason for staying through the weekend was to help them find a church. It is not necessary to go into all the reasons why they had not done this on their own, but the granddaughters in particular were ready and willing to attend church and I know how fleeting these moments can be and felt the need to act now. Before making the journey northward, I enlisted the prayer support of a number of friends.

Immediately, I found myself facing the same question as many another church-seeker: how can we quickly find a church, the one suited for our needs, without taking the atheist approach?

Not that an atheist would be looking for a church, but if he/she did so, they would most likely do it on the basis of location, appearance, program, the various services it offers, the compatibility of its membership, and so forth. In other words, exactly the approach 90 percent of church seekers use.

I had no time for this. In town for one Sunday only, I would have one chance to get this right. That reason more than any other drove me to serious prayer.

Several choices appeared to hold possibilities. My oldest granddaughter, now almost 19, had joined the Catholic church some two years earlier. From her parents, she had received no religious instruction or leadership, and when her boyfriend’s mother invited her to attend the Catholic church with them, she did so eagerly. She took the instruction classes and was baptized and loved everything about it, she says. But her younger sisters, ages 10 and 17, had attended only Baptist churches the few times they had gone, so with Grandpa being a Southern Baptist preacher and preferring something along that line, all three indicated a Baptist church would suit them fine.

The question was, which one.

In spite of my fifty-year ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, I was not limiting the Lord to an SBC church in that town. In fact, there did not seem to be one. Some churches were independent Baptist, one or two were affiliated with conventions found mostly in the North, and I noticed a Free Will Baptist Church across the street from the high school.

I grew up Free Will Baptist. Historically, the denomination is more Arminian than Calvinistic, meaning they believe a person can lose his salvation and get it back. Calvinistic churches tend to hold that if one is genuinely converted, nothing he can do will sever that bond. The FWB churches of my acquaintance had not spent time preaching such a doctrine, but had held to the great major doctrines of the Christian church and were certainly trustworthy. (Over the years, most Southern Baptists have tended to be somewhere in the middle between the Arminians and Calvinists on most doctrines.)

I felt drawn to visit that church. Then I found they had moved away.

We called the number on the church sign and found the congregation had relocated some five miles away. This would be no problem, so we made plans to attend.

Only later, after a successful and delightful experience in that church the following Sunday morning, did I reflect on the three most important considerations in assessing a new church. To my mind, nothing is more important or revealing than the answers to these three questions:

1) Do they love the Lord Jesus Christ?

2) Do they preach the Word?

3) Do they welcome a stranger?

The first–love of Jesus–is about the character of their worship. Many a church makes much of “Gawd” with hardly a passing reference to Jesus. Such congregations should be avoided at all costs. God has revealed Himself through Jesus, what Jesus did on Calvary is the heart of the Gospel, and thus “preaching Jesus” (Acts 8:35) is the church’s greatest assignment and highest privilege.

The second–preaching the Word–is about the content of their preaching. Did the minister give only lip service to the Scripture or did he direct the congregation to a significant portion of the Word and open it up for his hearers? Did his message tie in with the great doctrines of the Christian faith?

The third–welcoming a newcomer–is the ultimate clue to how well the church accomplishes the first and second tasks. Leviticus 19:34 instructed God’s people to receive a stranger “as the native among you,” adding, “you shall love him as yourself.” In the New Testament, Romans 12:13 and Hebrews 13:2 urge believers to “show hospitality.” The Greek word “philoxenia,” found only here in Scripture, literally means “love of strangers.”

Long story short, the Heritage Free Will Baptist Church of Laconia, New Hampshire, was God’s answer to our prayers. Pastor Joel Nason was far more than we could have asked. He was friendly and gracious, he remembered names, he mingled with the congregation prior to and after the service. His sermon from Psalm 19 was excellent in every way. He even led the congregation in reading the entire 14 verses. The people were friendly and welcoming.

Pastor Nason started that church, we discovered, some nine years ago. The relocated facility is sparkling new and well-situated for growth and ministry.

It turned out that my grandchildren knew some of the kids in the church and, to Jessica’s surprise, one of her high school teachers walked over and said hello. Leah’s friend Travis, who had accompanied us, recognized a friend or two in the church.

The following week, the two youngest granddaughters attended vacation Bible school each morning.

What makes this story especially poignant is the opposite experience I had with another church a number of years earlier. One weekday, the granddaughters and I had walked a few blocks up the street to another Baptist church and met the pastor. I told him the situation with these children and their parents, and he introduced us to the church’s children’s director. We sat in her office and chatted, and she told me how to contact the youth minister of the church who was away at the moment. Both ministers were friendly and I felt encouraged for these children whom I love with all my heart.

Returning home to Louisiana, I wrote letters and e-mails to the pastor and youth minister, attempting to lay upon their hearts the unusual opportunity and urgent spiritual needs of this little family.

I received no response from any of my contacts and no one from the church ever called on the family. Meanwhile, conditions inside the family deteriorated, ending with a divorce. The father of my grandchildren is now serving time in prison.

During this visit, I noticed on that church’s sign the congregation is about to welcome a new pastor. That’s good, I suppose, but readers will understand when I say that I have no desire ever to attend that church. I pray the new pastor will have a heart for the stranger, the newcomer, the outsider, for the child. Over the years, every time I received a call or letter asking me to visit a family member who had moved to our city and who “needs a church home,” I remembered that uncaring New Hampshire church and, wishing someone would reach my grandchildren there, quickly followed up and made the contacts.

You can see why we were so excited to find a Christ-loving, Bible-preaching, people-loving church.

When I was a kid on the farm, the way we sometimes sought out the perfect watermelon was to walk into the field and plug one. Now, it’s not a recommended practice, Dad was unhappy whenever he found we’d done that, and it ruins the melon. What you do is take your knife and cut a two inch square section out of the melon, pull it out, and taste it. If it’s good, you’ve got your melon. If not, you reinsert the plug, replace the melon with the plug facing the ground so no one sees it, and find another. As I say, it was not recommended procedure but every kid growing up on a farm did it.

Visiting a church one Sunday is a lot like plugging a melon. You’re there only once, you taste it, and you make a quick decision as to whether you want “the whole thing.”

On my drive South, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, long-time friend Greg Versen joined me for a cup of coffee near the interstate. Greg is a veteran college professor of social work, a professional photographer, and a blues addict. Oh, and he teaches Sunday School in a local Baptist church. He told me about his church.

“One couple came to our church and decided we were cold and didn’t come back. But a friend called them and urged them to reconsider. He felt they had misread our congregation. They came back and changed their minds and joined us. They’re now some of our best members.”

That’s a good reminder. Plugging a melon might work on the farm, but in all fairness, not every church can be known by one brief visit.

That’s why much prayer should be offered up for God’s leadership.