Church Shopping

That's what I call finding a new church... church shopping. 

It's no fun, but yet kind of an adventure.  An adventure that takes a really long time, since you can only usually attend one service a weekend! 

We moved here a little over two months and have not gone to church yet!  {gasp!} 

We have literally had maybe 3 weekends to ourselves without family that whole entire 2 1/2 months and when we first moved I had just gone through the loss of our baby and was not in a must-put-on-my-happy-friendly-everythings-awesome face to find a church!

So now we are looking.  We have had 1 great church in the past.  It wasn't perfect but it was great.  I don't expect to find a perfect church, but I want one that is perfect for us :)  We thought, really, really thought our last church was our perfect church and we really tried to make it work for us, but it just didn't.  Then we met friends in our community group and felt like we had to stay because we loved them, but we were pretty miserable with the church. 

Oh man... writing about all that makes me think how much I really want to test the waters and then test them again.

We will be trying new churches for the next several months.  It really is a process that maybe I look too much into... I do research on their site first because I want great ministries (womens, mens, childrens)... then we go once but sometimes you get a fluke-sometimes there is a special service, sometimes the speaker is not the usual, sometimes they are not in their normal routine, which can change what you think of the church.... I want people who homeschool and who support families being families which is not an easy thing to find out right away... so then we go again. 

Maybe we will rotate 4 or 5 churches for the next few months (living in the Bible belt we could really go to a new church every single weekend for a year & not even leave our city!!)... I am fully open and non-commital until I longggg for the community and involvement in the ministries. 

My main goal will be to pray for us to find our church home! 

PS.  I really think that someone should make a website to help people find a church.  You could put in how big you want it, denominations of course, ministries you want, age of members, homeschooling strong, connected with a school, outreach programs, etc. 

What church shopping tips do you have??  What do you look for in a church???  I'll love all the help and suggestions!!