There is no church of our denomination (PCA) here. The nearest one is over an hour away, so not a viable option. So we’re trying to find what local church will be the best fit.
It should include a reasonable number of people our age and situation, including other babies.
It should offer small groups for fellowship and prayer, for really putting into practice what it means to be the church.
The music and other elements of the service should be reasonably within our preferences. While I don’t think it’s right to pick or reject a church only by the music or liturgical style, I think it’s an important element of a good fit. God made our personalities, including our preferences — sometimes he challenges us to broaden them, but there’s no rule that says our preferences are evil by default, so why not seek to meet them when it’s possible.
Most importantly, the doctrine should be as close as possible to that of the PCA. Reformed, covenant theology, moderately Calvinistic. It’s amazing how much variety there is within Christian orthodoxy; while we don’t think Dispensationalists and other doctrinal variants are evil, we also think the distinctives matter, and we’d like Amy to grow up in a church that teaches what we believe, and we’d like our fellowship with our church to be unfettered by significant differences of belief.
So far we have visited a community church loosely affiliated with Assemblies of God (too divergent for us), an Evangelical Lutheran (reasonable but a small and older congregation), and an Evangelical Free (front runner so far, but need to clarify this particular congregation’s doctrine and some other things). We will probably visit a few others in the area as well.
