Here's my idea for judging whether a church is worth attending: Listen carefully to the public prayers. Here's my marks out of 5:
- 'Medical bulletin' prayers (e.g. 'we pray for X who has irritable bowel syndrome'), and there's no accompanying "Y has recovered from last week's illness": 2/5, the church cares but is probably low on faith.
- Medical bulletin plus healing has occurred: 4/5
- Obvious divine healing in response to prayer, especially if it's public prayer: 5/5
- Pray the BBC news: 2/5, the church's prayers are being driven by the latest disaster.
- Pray almost entirely for local church issues: 3/5, the church is probably active in the community, but might be blinkered regarding the wider world.
- Pray 'Oh God you're great' (or 'wonderful', or 'magnificent', etc.): 4/5: the church's focus is in the right place, but some further checking is needed to see what they do to help others.
- No public prayers: between 1 and 3, depending on the reason. Low marks if the church service is so full of gimmicks/drama/positive thinking/etc that God and Jesus don't get much of a mention.
- Ceremonial prayers (i.e. 'order of service'): anywhere from 1 to 5. The ceremonial prayers themselves are good, especially the Lord's Prayer; check the rest of the service to see how seriously the church takes them.
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