Okay, next question. How to choose a new church? Which is a short question, but there's some parts to that. You might be in a church already, or maybe you're brand new to Christianity, right?

But generally, I think this would be for people who are in a church and not 100% happy or think it's the place they should be. So it's like, how do you leave it and how do you find another one and transition with respect, I guess, and land up in the right place? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

I think one of the first things to maybe touch on or treat is how to not leave your existing church. You know, I think going back to the question about how to go about planting a church and those things that are inconsequential to church or to Christianity and those sorts of things. As Jim talked about the preferences sometimes that people can elevate to the top of the list as far as those things, those reasons for which they are in this case, you know, leaving their church or choosing a new one. I think there are a lot of bad reasons to leave your existing church, and so those may need to be treated in kind, but that's not necessarily the question.

How to choose a new church. If a person has come to the wholesome and the right decision that the church that they're presently at is not their church. It's not a gospel preaching church. It's a synagogue of Satan.

It's a church that has departed from the truth. They're not preaching the gospel. They're not adhering to the doctrine that was once for all delivered to the saints. They're not properly a Christian church.

So from that vantage point, I think choosing a new church is in the first place choosing one that is a Christian church that is faithful to the main things that really are the sum and substance of Christianity. If we look at what a Christian church is to be about, it is to be about the triune God, it is to be about the mediator Jesus Christ, It is to be about the gospel of that Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection for the salvation of sinners. And it's to be about the blessings and the glories of Christian salvation, which is that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So I think those are some of those top things, the chief and cardinal doctrines of Christianity.

Does that church get them right? And not just do they loosely hold them on that hidden page on their website that lists a statement of faith. I've, you know, in visiting churches throughout North America as I'm traveling, one of the things that I'll often do is I'll go to the website for the church and I'll search for their statement of faith. What do they believe?

On more than a handful of occasions, I've seen, okay, this statement of faith is pretty reasonable. They affirm the triunity of God, the deity, the humanity of Christ, the perfection of salvation exclusively in Christ. Certain things that perhaps touch upon our sort of predisposition to Reformed theology, but then you get into the context of worship, and it's like there's just a hat tip to that, but what they're actually doing within the context of church and worship is different and not conducive to that historic confession. So, yeah, I think faithfulness to the cardinal doctrines of Christianity and the actual practical outcropping or the actual practical display of that adherence to sound doctrine within the context of worship.

They are preaching the gospel. They are administering the sacraments as they ought to be administered. And they are engaging in church discipline, the instruction of disciples, the making of disciples. And perhaps that's a good place to go.

Are they faithful to Christ's great commission in Matthew 28, 18-20? Are they under the authority of the exalted and ascended mediator doing what that mediator prior to his ascension commanded that his church is to be about? The preaching of the gospel, the making of disciples, the baptizing of those made believing disciples, and the instruction in all of those things that Christ had commanded to be taught and that he himself taught. And so, I think if a Christian, again, who has departed a church for good reasons is looking for a church, that is what they ought to be looking for, a Christian church faithful to their calling.

Yeah, I would say, you know, before you leave a church or before you find another church, know what a church is. Right? You know, my church is so boring. Well, okay.

What is your concept of church? Church should be different than a date with my wife. Church should be different than watching, you know, my grandsons play t-ball. Church should be different.

Well, what is different about church? As Cam alluded to, the Belgic Confession, the march of the church, the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and the discipline of the church. If your church is practicing those things, you may not want to leave, right? That might not be, well, you know, they don't do it the way perhaps I'd like them to.

Okay, well, maybe there's a church practicing those things better. But sometimes people leave churches for very poor reasons. If your church is preaching the truth, And the church is disciplining through ongoing, you know, formative discipline with the Word and corrective discipline when people color outside the lines. They're administering the sacraments.

Then, bless God, you're in a church. Is it everything that you would possibly desire it to be? Probably not. But again, if we got exactly what we wanted on this side of heaven, we wouldn't long for heaven.

Everybody's got preferences. I've got preferences. There's things I'd like to change if it was up to Jim and his preference day at our church, but I know it's not my church. I know it's not my project.

It's Christ's. We need to obey Christ, and we need to do it in a way that brings glory to Christ. Sometimes persons leave churches for less than stellar reasons, but then sometimes people stay at churches for less than stellar reasons as well. If your church is not faithfully preaching the truth, if your church subordinates Jesus in theology, if your church teaches justification by faith plus words, It might be time for you to leave that church.

So yeah, there's some hasty departures, but there's also some times where a person should have departed a long time ago because your church is dead, or your church is corrupt, or your church is heretical. So, you know, know fundamentally what is a church, what is the marks of a church, what is a church supposed to be, and I think that helps then shape, guide, and direct you as to whether or not I should stay where I'm at or I should pursue something else. Yeah, it's those subjective things, because I've seen people get caught up with the subject of family and friends, and I've been there for, my family's been there for a hundred years, whatever, right? And you know, people are different.

People are different. And I get that. And I have to be patient with that as a pastor, because for me, if I had a doctor that was great at his job, but he had no bedside manner, I'd be fine with that. I don't need bedside manner from my doctor.

I have a wife for that. I have friends. I have other relations to fulfill those needs. I want the most steady hand, the most bright mind navigating whatever my malady may be.

Conversely, or the same with reference to if I was a member of the church and my pastor preached the Word, that's what I'm there for. Sure, if he wants to have coffee with me and say nice things to me, I'll take it. But I'm there for the preaching of the Word of God, and that to me is absolutely crucial. Now, I think that others are there for the preaching of the Word and having that coffee with the pastor.

And again, I'm not picking on them, but everybody's got to see in their own value system what is imperative, what is most important. And for me, it's, does the guy preach? And do they, you know, administer the sacraments properly? And do they discipline people when they need discipline?

Because if they do those things, then bless God, I'm in a church. So, I think basic definitions are very helpful to help us when it comes time to either stay at or leave a church. And I think Cam, you know, hits the nail on the head. Somebody can vow or affirm, yeah, we're confessional.

But if you go to that church and you never hear anything that is uniquely confessional, And again, confessional means biblical. But if you go to a church that, yeah, we hold the Second London, and they're preaching dispensationalism, or they're preaching progressive covenantalism, and again, I'm not demonizing those positions, but I'm saying you can't say you're confessional if you're not teaching what the confession teaches. You can't say you affirm chapter 8 in our confession and have some category of a subordinate Jesus when it comes to theology. You cannot say that.

Just like you cannot say I hold the Chalcedon and I hold the Nicaea and yet I've got gradation of persons within the Trinity or I've got three separate wills or three distinct consciousnesses. You can't. it's settled because they have the websites and the statements there is all could be it's like a marketing thing that somebody could have done five ten years ago the guys in the pulpit they're filling they're getting some bright people but they're from other seminaries and they haven't looked at the website they haven't vetted the people coming in their pulpit and i say this too if you're gonna look for a new church Give it a couple of months. I'm sure in your business, you have a bad day.

I'm sure in your business, you have a bad day. Pastors can have bad days. On a Sunday, you wouldn't think it, but they can't. And he may go and shovel, you know, gravel down your throats for a sermon.

And if you popped in there that time and said, that church is terrible, or nobody greeted me, You know, maybe it was a one-off. Maybe everybody in the church that day had a bad day. You really can't know something, I would suggest a couple of months. If you're going to make, you know, and this goes to something that I think is even less appreciated, church and where we go to church is one of the biggest decisions of our lives.

You know, who will we marry? How many children are we going to have? Where are we going to send them to school? All those are big questions, but where am I going to go to church?

It takes some reflection. It takes some examination. It takes some pondering. It takes some, you know, getting to know the pastor, getting to know the ministry, getting to know the brethren.

You can't do that on a Sunday morning. I just don't think it's possible, because again, bad day. Or maybe it was a great day, and otherwise the guy's terrible. So give it some time.

These are huge decisions. Where am I going to bring my wife and children in terms of church life? Is the worship reverent? Is it biblical?

Is the preaching sound? Is there gospel emphasis, especially as a father raising children? One of the best things I can do is let my kids to a good church on the Lord's Day where the gospel is going to be preached regularly and consistently, and the pastor is going to call upon sinners to believe and repent. I want my children in that.

I want to bring them up in that. Whether there's programs for them or whether there's nights for them. Again, I don't care. I care that they're hearing an earnest entreaty on the Lord's Day morning to come to Jesus and be saved.

That to me is far more valuable.