---
title: Choosing a Church
canonical: "https://southfieldreformed.com/who-we-are/our-congregation/choosing-a-church/"
description: "A summary of Rev. Stephen Pribble’s article on finding a good, Bible-believing church home."
---

This article was originally published on our congregation's earlier website. It is
summarized here, with the author's permission, and the
[complete original remains available](https://web.archive.org/web/20260413211005/https://reformed.com/congregation/pribble/)
for anyone who wants to read it in full.

Pribble offers guidance for finding a church home. He argues, from Matthew 10:32 and
Hebrews 13:17, that membership in a local church is necessary rather than optional, and
he encourages readers to look for a Bible-believing, confessionally Reformed or
Presbyterian congregation (or, where none is available, a Reformed Baptist or
independent church) rather than choosing a church based on worship style or personal
preference.

He is critical of a consumer approach to church shopping that asks what "works for me"
rather than what pleases God, and he suggests a set of doctrinal questions worth asking
a prospective pastor — covering the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, salvation by
grace through faith in Christ alone, the reality of final judgment, the six-day creation
account, the ongoing obligation of the moral law and the Christian Sabbath, worship
regulated by Scripture alone, and the practice of church discipline. He recommends
attending a candidate church for several weeks, and bathing the decision in prayer,
before committing.

Rev. Stephen Pribble is the pastor of
[Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church](https://www.all-of-grace.org/) in Lansing,
Michigan. This article is © 1996 Stephen Pribble. A companion piece,
["Is Church Membership Optional?"](/who-we-are/our-congregation/is-church-membership-optional/),
is also summarized on this site.