After many weeks of roses and heartbreak, we have arrived at the final four candidates for our church search. It’s been a weird, exciting, nervous time. When trying to explain it to people, the best comparison I can make is that we’re starring in our own season of The Bachelor. That might be sacrilegious, but it’s also facts.1

At its best and most ideal, your church home is a major source of community and comfort. These are the people who feed you when you have newborns, deaths, or just a kitchen without running water. They earnestly pray for you. You’ll go on retreats, share meals, become friends. It’s the first place you go when you’re in need, and these are the people who are supposed to reflect Christ’s love to you.

Sounds awesome, right? It is. I and many of my readers have also experienced hurt, humiliation, and exclusion at the hands of churches, so I don’t want to omit that either. At its worst, a church is a group of people who collectively judge, shame, and make other people feel small. Both the best and worst things can be true, sometimes within the same congregation.

Selecting a church is like a marriage proposal: it’s a major choice with the intent of long-term commitment. Many people prefer monogamy, staying in the same church even their entire lives. Others switch occasionally, but it’s akin to divorce - you’ve tried your hardest, prayed about it, and realized you have irreconcilable differences. In other words, it’s important to choose the right one, because once you’ve committed, you can’t just ghost the party.

You’re choosing your friends and values, for the next several years. It’s a statement about who you are, or who you hope to become. It’s a statement about what matters to you. You can be the church that has every left-leaning slogan out front, changing with the movement du jour. You can also be the rigid, every word of the Bible is literal, and let’s go out of our way to condemn homosexuality church. Most churches are probably in between, but our current culture demands polarization, and churches are as susceptible to it as all of us.

Speaking of polarization, I have recently accepted a small side gig. I’ll be consulting for a nonprofit whose mission is to create a more diverse workforce in the green energy space. Actual conversation in our household:

Me: It’s just such a polarizing time, and if you say the words “green energy” and “diverse”, there are automatically people who will judge you or think you’re stupid.

James: ….you do realize you’re talking to someone who works in ministry, right?

So, the DEI consultant and the ministry man set out to find their church home. Is there someone worthy of our final rose?

The First Impression Rose

Before I step foot into a church, I’ve already got vibes based on the website. It’s your written word. What you felt important enough to say to any random Google-r looking for God. First impressions matter.

I want to say loudly and proudly, so that there is no room for misunderstanding or misinterpreting me, that I do not believe being gay is a sin. I do not believe being transgender is wrong. God created us all on purpose. He made some people come out with both male and female genitals! It’s not an accident. God didn’t like, take a coffee break and forget to push a button on the control panel. No. If there is so much intentionality in creation that the Fibonacci sequence exists, then I don’t think gay people, intersex people, or anyone else who doesn’t neatly fit into “boy” or “girl” categories are an accident.

This is your warning that I’m about to drop an offensive statement that will probably disturb everyone across all lines of beliefs, but I’m saying it in sheer honesty. As I told James: I am OK if a church wants to quietly condemn homosexuality in like, the fine print of its bylaws that I have to download as a PDF in order to find. I am not OK if it’s on their main Beliefs page.

First impressions, you know?

One of the hardest things about my spiritual journey is that I am, through gritted teeth, kicking and screaming and whining about it, accepting that I have to be gracious to the church if I want the church to be gracious to me. If you aren’t advertising that you’re anti-gay, I’d like to think that maybe you’re contemplating. Reconsidering. Discussing at the leadership level, or at least have a diverse enough congregation that you’re wrestling with some things. However, if you feel comfortable enough to advertise your stance just 2 clicks from the homepage, then I know we are too far apart ideologically.

As I told James, through tears, I just want a church where [gay friend’s name] could go with me, if they wanted to, and be happy there. That is so bananas, right? “I just want people who claim to show the love of God to show it to this particular person, wholeheartedly and without qualification.” What an outrageous demand! Cue spiral into “maybe I should just quit this show and go home crying in the back of the Suburban while telling the camera that I thought it was really REAL this time.”

Listen. We are not here to show the judgment of God. We are not here to show the wrath of God. We are here to show the LOVE of God. I know holy wars have been fought, and are currently being fought, on the premise that we somehow have a divine mandate to kill, but I truly missed that line in the Sermon on the Mount. I just heard all the be gentle and lowly and all that stuff, and that’s honestly what gives me hope.

Back to first impressions. Advertising about the sanctity of life is also not a good look. It tells me that either you don’t have women in leadership, or you don’t have women in leadership who have been through some agonizing life circumstances. It tells me that you’re consciously or unconsciously tied to a political agenda, one that values the unborn more than children in detention camps at the border, when both matter. My favorite website, from a church that we never even visited, was one that shared this timeless and perfect quotation:

“In essentials, unity;

in non-essentials, liberty;

in all things, charity.”

- Attributed to St. Augustine or John Wesley but could have been someone else entirely. Probably a woman loool

So after a ruthless first impression browsing of websites, we narrowed down to churches we’d like to visit. I hope you can appreciate the irony that I am mercilessly judging churches based on how judgy they are about other people. There’s always one contestant on The Bachelor who spends her entire time trying to take down the other ladies in the house, amirite?

Here for The Right Reasons

We have involved the kids in our church search, asking their opinions and feedback. Their takes:

• Ki Jae likes one church best because it has a Lightning McQueen car to play with in his classroom.

• Maya likes a church with a beautiful outdoor space, and another one where the craft was really great.

• They both enjoy donuts and hot chocolate, but those alone aren’t enough to win them over.

So, what are the right reasons to choose a church home? James is looking for a group of spiritually mature men who are further along in their walk with Jesus. People he can learn from and be mentored by. While he loves his job, he spends most of his time pouring into others. He needs a space where people can pour into him.

I am looking for acceptance and understanding. The part I’m dreading most about this entire process is the moment when I “come out” as a nonbeliever. There could be a dimming of the eyes, a slight turning away of the body, a pursed lip. At worst, an offer to pray for my soul. At best, I’m hoping for a kind and compassionate response, one that says, “I understand, and I see why you feel that way.”

We are both looking for community. People to come over for dinner and hang out with, to celebrate and mourn together. We would like to see thoughtful teaching paired with an acknowledgment that we don’t have all the answers. We are not here for the coffee.

We are also not here for the Sunday show. It can be fun to dress up for church, especially if you spend the other 6 days in Mom sloth clothes. But I am hoping for moms with stained t-shirts, who forgot the water bottles, who know that letting go of the small stuff is the key to sanity, and that it’s church, not Instagram.

I also don’t need a hype live music performance. It’s church. Even if we try really hard to make it feel like it’s Saturday night at ACL live, it’s just not. James and I have talked around this a lot, and the words we use to describe an ideal worship experience are intimate and authentic. There is an ineffable sense of purity when the singer is truly feeling and believing each word, having a private experience publicly, rather than putting on a show. It won’t happen every Sunday, every song, but overall, we are hoping for worship that moves our souls.

I’m falling in love with multiple people!

Armed with our checklists, we’ve marched into churches. My first crush was a church that has had a 19-year old woman at the pulpit, and a Black female deacon. This is a church that intentionally focuses on ethnic and generational diversity. It felt like somewhere where I could belong. It has a ministry for unhoused people, which is a cause pulling at my heart. Each time we’ve visited, I’ve thought it could be the one.

Until we visited a denominational church in an old building. It had paper programs, acoustic worship, and a more scripted service with choral readings. It wasn’t a flashy product for us to consume. It was a congregational service, with all of us having a small role to play. I loved the sense of collective unity there. Are we about to be denominational people?

And then there is a church where friends go, close to Ki Jae’s school and soccer fields. It’s a community we seem to be spending more time in. They even have a class for people who are “Seeking”.

Surprisingly, the church I felt strongly about this week is a very conservative church. Like, don’t use instruments during worship conservative (you know who you are!). The people have been so welcoming that it makes me want to hang out with them more, and it’s close to our house. Also, God sent me a signal during the sermon that had me and James laughing uncontrollably. I’ve been focused on a particular prayer, and the pastor put it on the screen and told us all to write it down. Ok, God, I see you telling me to stay open to this church. I get it.

I love them all for different reasons! This is where there is a long, stuttering monologue from the Bachelor as he attempts to articulate how each woman is different. I think what he’s trying to say is:

Each of these brings out different facets of me, and I’m not sure how to choose. There is someone who seems to know me best as I am now. There is someone who presents a new and different way of being, and I’m excited to explore that possibility. There is someone who was completely unexpected, and I want to widen my mind to consider that option. Having not gone the distance with any of these people, I am uncertain what’s best in the long-term.

The Surprise Visitor

If there isn’t enough drama in the Bachelor season, an old flame or previously eliminated contestant will show up unexpectedly. We are mostly looking at traditional churches - traditional as in, a building and a congregation. There is one candidate, not in the final four yet, that is much more nontraditional. Will we have a first date soon? Or, by the time we do have a first date, will the other relationships have progressed too far? Will this surprise visitor wreak havoc on the entire church search?

Will You Accept This Rose?

In the moment, each church feels right. On Sunday, I think that I could commit to being here, which is wherever we are that day. Then we leave, and at the next church, the same feelings emerge. We’ve swapped a few phone numbers and created some initial sparks. Then we leave, and I wonder if we will never see these people again.

Since I drafted this, we’ve visited somewhere else. They asked if we would be back next Sunday. I gave them a big smile and said “maybe!” Not gonna make promises I can’t keep.

Unlike the Bachelor, we have more than 12 weeks to make our decision. We can keep showing up and determine which church feels right in the long-term. The only deadline on us is our kids’ tolerance for continuing to try new environments, which is waning with each passing week.

Our next step with most of these churches is to attend a smaller social, class, or home group setting. It’s time for hometowns, y’all! Will James find a group of mentors? Will the women be shocked at Emily’s “coming out”? Stay tuned for the exciting season finale!

Postscript

Just yesterday, I felt compelled to eat at a local Korean restaurant that gives away free food once a month. The generosity is the restaurant owner’s ministry to the community, and she offers prayers and blessings along with the food. This is how I found myself outside on a picnic table, with an ajumma, who prayed over me as I cried. Leave it to me to find God more in a Korean restaurant worker than in any formal church service.