20 Questions to Ask before Joining a Church

Do you mean "infallible" or inerrant?

While I do believe that these gifts have ceased, this isn't really a deal breaker for me, assuming the church meets the Biblical criteria we're looking at.

Many of your other questions are good (although I'm a little concerned about XVI).

I would add the following questions (and for the record, they were compiled by Todd Friel, not by me):

1. What is man's biggest problem?
Seeker sensitive and felt-needs churches focus on man’s hurts and problems. The Bible says that man’s biggest problem is sin.

2. What must a man do to inherit eternal life?
Repent and trust is the Biblical answer. If the word “repent” is never used, say, “Thank you” and leave.

3. How do you deliver the salvation message?
Ask the pastor to describe specifically what he says. Does he encourage people to simply say a prayer? Does he tell people to ask Jesus into their hearts? The salvation message should include: God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness, God’s response (hell), God’s kindness (Jesus on the cross), man’s response (repentance and faith).

4. How hard is it to become a Christian?
The “formula” is simple, doing it is not. It is not easy to believe.

5. How often do you talk about sin, righteousness and judgment?
Balance is key. This should not be the only emphasis, but it should be a regular emphasis.

6. How seeker sensitive is your church?
It is o.k. for a church to be “seeker aware” but seeker sensitive means that they lean toward seekers and not the saved.

7. Who do you do church for, seekers or members?
“Both” is not acceptable. Church should be done for members and the unsaved are welcome to attend.

8. Do you dumb down your sermons?
If he says yes, he is probably not trying to wean his members from milk to meat.
Answers like, “We try to make our sermons accessible to everyone” are sermons that are not meaty.

9. What is your mixture of topical vs. expository preaching?
Topical preaching is fine, but if a pastor never or rarely preaches expositionally (verse by verse), then you are going to be learning from the pastor and not God’s Word.

10. Do your sermons emphasize theology or are they relevant?
Everyone should say their sermons are relevant, what you are looking for is if they teach theology.

11. Describe your youth programs.
If fun and games is the major (and usually first) emphasis, you have a youth program that is trying to compete with MTV.

12. Describe your evangelism programs.
Don’t just accept, “We have an evangelism committee.” Dig. Are they serious about saving souls?

13. What church growth model do you follow?
Hopefully they don’t have one. Churches should be reaching out to the lost, but churches that are plugged into new church growth models tend to follow man’s modern ideas rather than the Bible.

14. How much do you give to missions and the hungry?
Again, this reveals the heart of the church. While most churches give to missions, many never consider the poor.

15. Do you believe the Bible contains no errors or contradictions?
No equivocation allowed here.

16. Do you believe in a literal 6 day creation?
Jesus did (Matt.19:4).

17. Do you believe in a literal hell and eternal punishment?
Jesus did (Matt.25).

19. When you distribute the Lord's Supper, do you emphasize the need to examine yourself?
Paul did (I Cor.11:27-32).

20. Can a person who is living in a persistent lifestyle of sin inherit eternal life?
Sinners can certainly be forgiven, but practicing sinners cannot inherit eternal life (I John 3:8,9).

21. Does your church exercise church discipline?
Paul said we should (I Cor.5).

22. Do Sunday school teachers, nursery, and youth volunteers fill out an application to answer questions about their core beliefs, or are all volunteers accepted?

23.What are the essentials of the faith?
Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Salvation through faith alone, the inerrancy of Scripture.

24. Do you have a cross in your sanctuary?
Many remove it because they fear it will turn off seekers. They should glory in the cross. The cross should be the central focus of every church.

 

The Bible is inerrant, but is not infallible.

 

Still Learning will be withdrawing from this site since he is required by his own questions to practice separation. He wouldn't fellowship with me because I use a NASB as my primary study and preaching text. Also, I do not believe that tongues are no longer a valid gift. Personally, I've never spoken in tongues and what I've heard was not Biblically practiced. But, to write it off is going too far.

 

Can you please explain to me, why it is not “infallible”!

Come on SL, surely you understand very clearly? Hopefully, he doesn't take your bait like the rest of us have. Your agenda is quite evident.

 

Inerrant means that it is free of error, which it is. Infallable means that it is incapable of error, which it is not.

For instance, there are several copyist errors in the Bible.

 

So is the Bible Inerrant then with the copyist errors? Or is the Bible(Word that God gave us) inerrant and the copy is not inerrant? If so, then we can still say that the Bible is infallible as it will never be in error though people might copy it down incorrectly.

 

See above.

 

see above what? I looked at the post I quoted from. Which one are your referring to?

 

If you say so.

 

It is, again, interesting that some churches seem to be able to put together these kind of lists of doctrinal qualifiers (which is a fine thing to do) but in almost every list (and definitely this one) they leave out the mission of God.

As I would challenge (and have in my ignored post above) that it is far more important to align a church who has the foundational matters in place and is on intentional Kingdom driven, God glorifying mission than trying to weed out good people over largely peripheral issues (which the list in the OP is ALL about.)

I find the list to be silly and downright missing the point...though I suspect the church(es) that subscribe to it are doing the same.

 

Churches that don't prioritize evangelism and missions over doctrinal turf wars are not "just fine" in many, many, many ways.

 

No one, particularly myself, is saying foundational doctrines aren't important. One should know why they are going to add fire to their desire to go.

What we are objecting to is that pointless bickering over ridiculous peripheral doctrinal issues like much of this list is dedicated to.

For me and my house we prayerfully choose churches that align in mission and doctrine. They are co-equally important. And as for doctrine the foundational elements are essential, the shared theology is important, and the peripheral issues are ways to exhibit graceful disagreement.

Yet without missions it's just a country club meeting several times a week.

 

problem is #1(which goes along with #2) doesn't define believing the Bible, but promoting a KJV ONLY view, not sound doctrine. I believe the Bible, not this idea that only one particular English translation is somehow perfect.

3 and 4 I agree with and would ask those questions.

#16 I agree with separation, but not the prideful separation many want to take. I'm saddened when I have to separate, not happy. I'm not a judge and am not going to say that the majority of Christians are in "apostasy." There are different levels of separation, but not the prideful kind.

 

If a church holds the right doctrine, then sane evangelism will follow.

I've wondered about our churches where only about 40% of members show up on Sunday. What gospel did the sixty percent respond to, that didn't produce a desire for obedience to God?

What are we to say to those whose sole hope of heaven is "I said the prayer," or "I walked the aisle?"

What are we to think of those preachers who will ask, "Wanna Go to Heaven. Repeat after me?"

What are we to think about a famous Southern Baptist evangelist who guaranteed conversions during his revival (if you followed his methods, of course.)? Not Billy Graham, by the way.

So, in line with the OP, one of the questions I would ask the pastor of the prospective church is "How do you believe men and women come into a right relationship with God?"