Please Avoid When Church Planting

We have been visiting a lot of churches lately, trying to find a new home. There are many to choose from here in Texas. I have been all over their websites; I have been up and down their halls. I have had my fingers in their doctrine, and my taste buds in their coffee (I suddenly sense in trying to form a poetic construction, I have simultaneously made it sound like I am the creeper walking into strange churches, sticking her tongue in their coffee pot and walking out.), and my heart in their worship. We aren't people to just walk into a place and have it feel right. We're too cynical for that. Too scientific. We need proof: proof that they trust the inerrant Word of God alone, proof that they worship the One true King of Kings, proof that they don't dilute the coffee in an effort to appeal to the masses.

My research has led me to compose a brief list of suggestions, should any of my now non-existant readership want to start their own church someday. Just a couple thoughts if you want smart visitors to darken your doors, and if you would like them to repeat darken on occasion.

1. Do not inform me on the home page of your website in reference to your church leadership that you have "assembled only the most anointed people for [y]our team". Because the poor sucker looking at your website probably already feels pretty badly about themselves at this stage in life, and there's nothing so condemning as being reminded of the lie that God finds everyone else more awesome than you.

2. Speaking of people being awesomer... don't tell me that the initial manifestation of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life is speaking in tongues. Because with Google Translate on the market today, there is really no reason for the tongues-speaking-ness, except a few ecstatic folk trying to bolster up their shaky awesomeness.

3. As a follow-up to the desperate need for affirmed awesomeness in the tongues department... don't tell me that miraculous physical healing is the divine right of every believer. If you do insist on asserting this, when I literally run my tired feets off to your front door and collapse in the throes of heat exhaustion, I expect every person in the building to see 20/20, never have a cold, and hover two feet off the ground. (Hey, how do we know gravity isn't just a disease?)

4. Don't tell me I have to participate in spiritual formation. Because I can kill you with my brain.

5. Do not reference the ordinances of your denomination in your doctrine of faith. In fact, if you get really ambitious, do not reference anything other than the living and abiding Word of God in your doctrine of faith. I don't care what the Baptists said. I don't care what the Pentecostals said. I care what my God said. In research this is second-hand citing, and it is a sign of laziness or shaky theoretical foundations. If you can't find enough evidence in the Scriptures to affirm a belief, it is not a belief worth stating in your doctrine of faith.

6. Spell check. No one wants to go to your class on "Being a Pacemaker".

7. Don't tell me you only use the 1611 King James version of the Bible. Can we just not start off on the foot where you think I'm a pagan, and I think you're a prude? Just stop.

8. And lastly... this one is very important, so please, if you do intend to start a church go grab a pen, I'll wait. Ready? Ok!

DO. NOT. BE. A. JERK.

WRITE. IT. DOWN.

Do not slap a barcode on the back of a visitor's child and point him down one enormous corridor, slap a biohazard sign on the other child (she has allergies, not the plague) and point her down another enormous corridor, and adamantly refuse to allow them to go down the same unknown corridor to unknown rooms, with unknown faces together. Do not look aghast when said visitor's husband picks up both of his children and declares, "They're going together." Do not call security (which is in the cop car outside directing traffic).

Do not look at the visitor as if she is some manner of witch for having the audacity to ask if there is a women's Bible study. And this is important: Do not point at the Ladies' Crazy Christmas Coffee as an acceptable substitution. I bite.

Do not glower when the visitor passes the communion tray incorrectly. She's trying her best.

Do not hurl your opinions from the pulpit about the sinfulness of those wicked youth under the age of fifty, when the only people in the "sanctuary" under the age of 50 are visitor and her husband. Do not remind them what sinners they are. They know. Once you reach 60 you are perfected and sin no more. I have thirty more years of heathenness in me.

Do not tell young women who are desperately alone that there is no space for them in the women's Bible study on Wednesday morning. Do not tell them they can't come.

As a teacher at the university I had two rules for all my classes: show up and don't be a jerk. I don't find it too unreasonable to expect the same of God's elect.

Just be nice.