This past July, my church graciously gave my family and me a month-long sabbatical. For four consecutive Sundays, I had the opportunity to visit four different churches from three different regions of the U.S.

I had one main criteria for deciding which church to attend: the church must take the Bible seriously.

With a little poking around on the internet, this was fairly easy to discover. Did the church’s website emphasize the timeless relevance of God’s Word or did it reflect current social trends? Was the most recent sermon an explanation and application of a Scriptural text or theme, or was it more of a self-help, motivational talk?

A church’s serious approach to the Bible was my one conscious criteria, but after visiting these churches, I discovered that four additional aspects of a church’s Sunday gathering mattered more to me than I initially realized.

1. Congregational Singing

First, I wanted a church where my family and I could participate in the worship by singing with the congregation.

The earliest Christians made singing an essential part of their worship gatherings. Writing to the Colossians in the middle of the first century, the Apostle Paul urged them to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16).

Non-Christians took notice of this as well. The Roman official Pliny the Younger, in a letter to emperor Trajan, reported that Christians “were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.” It is true that other religions incorporate music into their liturgies; but in Christianity, music enjoys a uniquely place for unique reasons. Christians (normally) gather to sing together because of our belief that each Christian—not just an elite priesthood—has the privilege and responsibility of praising God in song.

All the churches we visited included musical worship, and I was happy to sing praise to God every time. But it is worth mentioning that in some gatherings, certain factors conspired to dampen congregational singing, despite the efforts of the worship leaders.

At times I was confused about whether the song was just for the worship leaders or for everyone. In one service, the stage arrangement and levels of lighting approximated a concert setting in which we were spectators rather than active participants. Some songs had melodies and rhythms that were just difficult to follow. And in still other cases, the lyrics had such a tenuous connection to Biblical doctrine that left me puzzled about what we were celebrating.

In most churches, however, the music was a highlight. The songs were carefully chosen to facilitate congregational singing, with lyrics that honored Christ and melodies that were both beautiful and easy to sing.

I want to be clear here that I’m not talking about a “traditional” versus a “contemporary” worship service, or for old hymns versus new songs. In fact, it hardly mattered at all whether there was a drum or organ, guitar or piano, old new songs or old songs. (In a couple services, I appreciated how the drums bolstered the energy of the congregational singing.) What mattered was whether the instruments—drum or organ, contemporary chorus or classic hymn, piano or guitar—melody, and lyrics were put to the service of congregational singing.

2. Worshipful Preaching

I’m an avid student of public speaking, and I know in theory that a person’s character (ethos) is often more persuasive than their content (logos). But I was surprised by how much I found myself saying silently to the preacher, “And who are you? Do you believe this? Does it matter to you?”

During one sermon, the pastor played a video clip of S. M. Lockridge’s well-known sermon “That’s My King.” I love that clip: the climactic cadence of the words, the resonance of Lockridge’s voice, and the passion of his delivery. “That’s my king!” Lockridge thunders, then earnestly asks, “Well, I wonder, do you know Him? Do you know Him?”

The audience applauded when the clip ended, and the pastor humbly remarked that Lockridge put it better than he himself could have. That was probably true, but I couldn’t help silently asking, “But do you feel the same way about King Jesus? I wonder, do you know Him?” As moving as Lockridge’s delivery was, how much better would it be for the pastor—in his unique but heartfelt way—to exalt Jesus as his king?

This mattered so much to me, I think, for a reason that surprised me. I came to church needing to be reminded that Christ is alive and real today. I know this in theory—but is it real? When I come into church, I should be confronted with the reality of the risen Christ as he is being experienced and proclaimed by the gathered congregation and by the one who speak on his behalf. As the Apostle Paul put it, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

After the service in which I heard the S. M. Lockridge video clip, I remembered of something I had read in a book by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers.

I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and the glory of God, the love of Christ my Saviour, and the magnificence of the Gospel. If he does that I am his debtor, and I am profoundly grateful to him.

I also thought about a section from Tim Keller’s book on preaching that continues to grip me:

Are you “sensing Christ on your heart” as you preach? Are you, in a way, meditating and contemplating him during the very act of preaching? Are you actually praising him as you talk about his praiseworthiness? Are you actually humbling yourself as you talk of your sin? The answer will be very evident to any attentive listener . . . Prepare the preacher more than you prepare the sermon.

I wanted to hear preaching that demonstrated mastery of the Word, of course; but even more than that, I wanted to hear a preacher whom the Word had mastered.

3. Solidarity with the Worldwide Church

The Apostles’ Creed affirms the Christian belief in the “holy catholic church”—catholic here meaning, of course, not Roman catholic, but “universal” or entire. (The word “catholic” comes from two Greek words: kata [according to] and holos [the whole]). This is simply short-hand way of declaring what we find taught throughout the Scripture: the people of God, though composed of many individuals and local gatherings, are one body.

In each church that my family and I walked into, I expected to find things that were unique: unique people, unique styles of worship, unique sermons. But what I wanted, above all, was to experience the central thing we share in common with our church back home and with all Christians all around the world: our faith in and allegiance to the Triune God.

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6)

I felt the importance of this when, at one church, a pastor led us in the Lord’s prayer. As we recited those simple and profound words together, it struck me that millions of other Christians all around the world were praying those same words—many at the exact same time as we. I was reminded in a profound way that when we gather to worship Christ, we gather not merely as an individual Christians, nor merely as local congregations, but as a worldwide body of believers transcending time and space. This exalts the beauty and glory of Jesus, who is so beautiful and so glorious that he attracts worshipers from every era, culture, and location. His love is so expansive that it includes people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The writer of Hebrews says that when we come to Christ, we come also to “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23).

As the classic hymn puts it:

The church on earth hath union
With God the Three-in-One
And blessed, sweet communion
With those whose rest is one.

4. Caring Community

I admit that it’s unfair to judge a church based on only one visit on a Sunday morning. After all, the church is much more than its Sunday gathering. Still, I expect that any given Sunday gathering will reveal at least some clues about what kind of relationships exist among the people there. I wanted to know whether these people really loved each other, whether I could sense any signs of care.

At least two clues showed signs of church community. One was the announcements about various opportunities for people to pray together, to study the Bible together, or to engage in community efforts together. The other was how the people actually interacted with each other before and after the service.

In one church, for example, I watched an elderly man speaking to a woman before the service began. She listened attentively, and at the end, I read her lips saying, “I’m so sorry.” It was just one interaction, but it signaled concern and empathy.

Jesus said that the world would know that we belong to him by the love we have for one another. In a world that is increasingly fractured and splintered, I longed to see signs of affection centered around Jesus, and rejoiced to see many signs of that happening in the churches we visited.

Rejoice: Christ is being exalted!

I’ve written about these four aspects of Sunday gatherings, not to criticize anyone’s sincere efforts to exalt Christ, but to highlight some of what I believe are healthy marks of church gatherings shaped by Scriptural aims.

On the whole, when visiting other churches, my main take-away is one of awe and encouragement. Here we are—on the other side of the world and 2,000 years removed from the place and time of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. And on any given Sunday, untold millions gather to worship Christ and hear his teachings. Truly, this is Christ’s church. He is building it. And nothing will prevail against it!