My Fiancée and I (24) Need Help Finding A Church in Wichita
Like the title says, my fiancée and I are looking for a church and I need some help because there are quite a few. This is extremely important to me to choose a church that we can grow and raise our family in. The hardest aspect is that I have quite a few things I look for in a church.
Context: We just left the Wichita Christian Church which was formally the Wichita Church of Christ. Now there were a lot of things we enjoyed about this church, but a couple things that just didn’t sit right. Biblically I think they were excellent, they had a great approach to bringing every teaching back to the bible. With not only biblical context, but historical. We had no issues with what they preached because they would answer any questions or rebuttals we had with patience, scripture, and history. However, the social dynamic was odd, now church of Christ does have some controversial history with cult behavior. Though they did not do anything manipulative or necessarily wrong, there was a weird dynamic. Every person had to do this study when they came in and it was clearly a study that was biblically fine but could easily be manipulative. When we pushed back on the structure wanting to make it more personal and more relational, it would always go back to them pushing this study structure, trying to make us believe we were the issue when there was tension. I won’t list everything that was odd, but it just made us feel uncomfortable and we wanted a community that felt like home not fake.
- One thing that is crucial is the size. We are not fans of very large churches, if the preacher is unable to know everyone that attends their church by name I believe it is too large. The community of church is very important, we are looking for a church that people know each other well enough that if someone new stepped in the door people in the church would know. Of course a loving atmosphere where it feels like one family.
- We are looking for a church that takes communion every week. It is very important that the church is bible focused, what I mean by that is a church that it verifies what it preaches. We can’t stand a church that throws a million verses in its sermon out of context just to fit whatever they are teaching. We do believe that baptism is required for salvation with the examples like the thief on the cross being an example of Gods Grace, not the standard. We are willing to approach new ideas if the church is willing to provide good biblical and historical context to their arguments.
- I have had a tough time connecting here in Wichita and would love a church where the men get together and connect. With us both being 24, having some young couples and families would be great to have.
Of course getting every little thing you want is not possible. We value the church and faith in our lives and ultimately want to find a great community that takes their faith seriously and can hold their own to being questioned. Thank you for taking time out of your day to help us!