How to choose a good church

(This is an edited highlight of the sermon preached on June 17 by Paul Wicking, entitled, “How to choose a good church”.)

Ephesians 1:15-17

"For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better."

We’re really blessed here at NUC, because we have so many people passing through our doors. People from so many different countries. Sometimes our visitors are just in Nagoya for a few days, so we just see them for one service. Sometimes they stay for a year or two, if they’re here working with a multinational company, or else they might be teaching English somewhere. Occasionally we get old guys like Ps Michael and myself, who hang around for much longer than that.

And so we get a lot of first time visitors that come to see us. All of the people here right now .. which means that all of you … started as a first-time visitor. And then you stayed.

My question is: why?

Why would a person come to our church, and then make it their spiritual home? I mean, even though only 1% of the Japanese population is Christian, there are still quite a few churches in Nagoya. A lot of them are very good.

Why would you choose this one?

The title for today’s message is: How to choose a good church. Or, if I asked the same question in a different way – How can you evaluate the quality of a church? If we hold up a mirror to our own church, Nagoya Union Church, how can we know if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing? What does a good church look like?

In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul is giving thanks to God for this church. Paul loves this church. That’s why he gives thanks. I mean, you don’t give thanks for something that you’re not happy with. Paul is extremely happy with this church, he thinks it’s a great church, he loves it … and so he does not stop giving thanks for it.

Do you ever talk with Christian friends in other countries? My brother is in the US, and I have some Christian friends in Australia and Singapore and a few other places in Japan. And I often ask them about their church.

Have you ever done that? And your friend says something like, “I’ve found such a great church! It’s wonderful! I love it. I thank God so much for my church.” Just like Paul says here. “I thank God so much that I’ve found such a good church.”

And then you say, “I’m so glad for you. That’s great. Why do you love it so much?”

And you’ll get a range of responses. Some common responses are:

·     There is an awesome band. They have a guitar and a bass and drums. The worship is nuts!

·     The pastor is so funny. His sermons just crack me up. He’s such a great preacher.

·     It’s an amazing building. It holds about 3,000 people, and there’s TV screens around the side so you can see the people up the front, and a bookstore in the lobby.

·     It’s Baptist! It’s Presbyterian!

·     … and this kind of thing.

Now these are all good things. Worship is good, good preaching is good, it’s nice to have a big building. That’s all OK. But there is something much more important.

If you want to really assess the quality of a church, it all boils down to two things. If a church does nothave these two things, it doesn’t matter what else it has, it will be a poor church.

So, what are these two things? It says here in verse 15:

“I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people.”

These are the two things: Faith and love. Faith in the Lord Jesus, and love for all God’s people.

So a really great church is a church that has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A church that does not trust in its own goodness or its own strength, but trusts completely in the Lord. Like we do here, at NUC. We don’t trust in our own ability to earn God’s love.

And love for all God’s people. People who are genuinely saved and are real believers in Christ have a great love for all God’s people. And a good church is a church that is filled with people who love each other. 

Jesus said, “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.” (John 13).

This is how you can tell a genuine Christian church from any other social organization. You probably belong to a number of social groups. There’s the neighbourhood group, the chounaikai. There’s the local PTA group, if you’ve got kids in school. You might be a member of a music band, or a sports team, or a group of friends from work.  It’s a good thing to belong to groups like this. But there is a big difference between those groups, and your church.

What is that difference? Love. “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.” That is how people will know that you’re following Christ. This love you have for one another? Why? Because this kind of love is not found anywhere else.

The people in a soccer team might be very friendly, they might be helpful and encouraging and you may get a lot of enjoyment and laughs from hanging out with them. But they will not love you the way that your brothers and sisters in church love you.