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This could have been the most massive book in the library. But you've narrowed down the criteria a bit to some important matters.

I made a list of things I called my nonnegotiables. And I have found that sometimes people have nonnegotiables, but they compromise them and then they're really unhappy at the church.

I was raised in the Church of the Nazarene. It's a very conservative denomination, but they ordained women from the inception of the church. I grew up with that framework, so I have a hard time attending a church that's still discussing that. The flip side could be very true for somebody. They may say, I don't want to go to any church that would ordain a woman. So I think that it's important to know what your nonnegotiables are—and don't compromise them.

But after the nonnegotiables, the list gets a bit thinner.

Yeah. Because what it means to be a Christian is defined differently by the different denominations. Participating in the sacraments and the church life is what defines a Christian in the Roman Catholic Church. But if you just sort of remotely have a Bible, you can participate in some of the others.

You ask, "Does size matter?" What did you observe about the size of the church and how it affects whether it's a good fit?

I think if you've got a lot of different kinds of people in your family, a larger church will meet your needs better because there's a variety of programs. Or you may want to have a really small church where everybody knows everybody.

One thing I have observed is whether you go to a large or small church, you need a small group where you connect to a handful of people—where you can really go deep with those relationships.

What's another helpful tool for choosing a church?

One is the clout continuum. If you were in an argument and somebody is going to trump your card, what's the bottom line of what really convinces you? Is it Scripture? Is it your personal experience? Or is it the tradition of the church?

Each denomination has a little variation on that. If you're really a biblically based-type Christian, then you need to go to a church where that's the card that they're going to play as the bottom line. If you're a more traditional person, you want a church that says, We're going to do it that way because we've always done it.

Some people might say your book takes a very consumeristic approach. What do you say to that?

Well, I think it's a legitimate criticism, and it's one that I've sort of capitulated to. This book really is like a consumer guide, and that's something that is in our society for good or ill—and probably a little more for ill.

But I think beneath that is the reality that I think you should pick a church where you feel fully accepted and simultaneously challenged to grow spiritually. So you don't have to go somewhere where you feel just because you hate it, it must be God's will.

How are people receiving the book?

I think the most interesting thing that I have discovered after writing the book is that people will find a larger church that they may or may not agree with, but where they can find a small group to relate to. Looking back, that's what I did. I didn't really care that much about the larger church that I went to, and I wasn't that into the theology or maintaining the larger church. But I was involved in a small outreach ministry to young people, and that's where I found my community. I think a lot of people are doing that: They're finding a small group of people within the church that they really identify with and that they can be challenged by and loved by. And they're willing to tolerate a lot of the politics and stupidity if they can have a subgroup in which they can worship.

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July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47