Over the last few years Matt Ward, a chaplain at Leeds University, has been doing research looking at how students who had been part of churches while they were at university found new churches after they graduated. Here are his top five tips for finding a new church to belong to when you graduate.
1. Make finding a church part of your plans for moving
You're leaving the town that's been home for the last three years. It's been an amazing time of growth and now it's time to head into the wide world of work. No doubt as you're packing and you've got a list of things that you need to sort in preparation for moving to a new place.
With so many other pressures as you move its easy to forget about church. Yes, it's important to keep visiting friends and family and when you're working the weekends are suddenly more precious than ever, but it is all too easy to find three months have gone since you moved and you've still not really looked for a church. Make it a priority.
Thinking about finding a new church means that you need to think what sort of church it will be. That means taking time to consider what's been important about the church you've been part of until now. Those who took part in my research often developed some sort of list of criteria that they used to search for a church. Those criteria were informed by what they had already experienced (good and bad) in churches, and provided a good start point when looking at new churches.
2. Use your networks
When you move you will use all sorts of tools to help find the new stuff you need to sort. You should definitely use those same tools for looking for a church. Google for churches in Bingley, or where ever you are moving to. You'll probably end up with a list of possible churches that all say they are friendly and welcoming that you could try. However good your search skills are it's always worth trying to get some local knowledge.
Chances are that you will know someone who's got some sort of link to the place you're moving. Ask around, post on facebook, it might be a friend, a friend of a friend, a chaplain or a student worker. Someone will have a connection they can put you in touch with. It's all part of social capital, and the church community is a great place to be able to connect with others who are part of the same worldwide community. That capital makes it possible to find a link with someone on the ground which can be really helpful. Suddenly there is someone to help you navigate through that list of possible and ideally help you connect you with someone who already belongs to a church you're looking at.
As well as the personal links don't forget that you can also make use of Student Linkup. Again it gives you a contact with someone in a local church.
3. Pray about it
This sounds so obvious, but it is so important. As you look for a new church to belong to pray about it. When they start university many Christian students attend church fairs and go on church crawls. Those activities create a strong sense of a church marketplace. When that has been your previous experience it is difficult to take another approach. So it's tempting to create that shopping list of things that you want in a perfect church, a bit like producing a list of things that you want in a new place to live. The problem with lists like that is you can become too focused on what you want and not what God wants.
Finding a new church is a process of discernment not shopping. Discernment is all about seeking God's direction. It's about being open to God and the many ways in which he might speak to you, and it's about being willing to respond to him. When people who were part of my research focused more on the discerning than on their shopping list they invariably found a new church and very quickly felt that they belonged. Finding and belonging to a church is a big part of our discipleship. It is about finding a place where we feel at home with both the people there and most importantly with God. That should be at the heart of all our seeking.
4. Look for opportunities to get involved.
The most important thing about finding a church to belong to is finding somewhere you can be involved. When you're involved in the life of a church you very quickly belong. There's is a big difference between attending church and belonging to church. When you're attending you are probably still doing that discerning thing of trying to work out whether the church matches your criteria and whether it is where God wants you. When you move to belonging you become part of the community and make a contribution that helps shape the life of the church in that place.
Being involved is about more than filling a gap in a rota, it's about using the gifts that God has given you to help build the Kingdom in the community he is putting you in. In my research it was the people who were invited to contribute to the life of a church that found belonging. When you belong you develop relationships with others who are part of the community and will also find that your faith develops. That's because relationship is at the heart of our faith. Each one of us in invited into relationship with God. Somehow we are invited to participate in the life of the Trinity. Being part of church is how we express that participation.
5. Become the welcoming guest
We all know people who are a bit hesitant at offering invitations. They sometimes need a bit of a prompt to do it, sometimes they need things turned upside down so they don't need to offer the invitation but simply play the host. Churches are the same. Some are better are inviting people to get involved than others. Some have a fear of putting new comers off by asking them to do stuff too soon. The reality is there is no such thing as too soon (one person in my research was invited to get involved with something on his first visit to a church - he said yes and never looked back!). You can always say no if you're not ready or you're not sure it's the right thing to be involved with.
If you find yourself in a church that isn't great at inviting you to do stuff don't be afraid to invite yourself. OK, that can sound pushy but it's not meant to be. If you've been discerning where God wants you and have found that church maybe it's time for you to become the welcoming guest by creating your own invitations. It is exactly what we see Jesus doing when he meets with Zacheus - knowing it is the right place to be spending his time Jesus simply invited himself to dinner
The hesitant Zach would never have presumed to make such an invitation, but is delighted to accept and you know the rest of the story.
