the search for church

i have been very productive during my school break so far: i made appointments with doctors within my new insurance plan, i changed my car insurance, i packed up my christmas decorations, and i made a long list of things that still need to get done. things like finding a church in madison; a church with good, solid teaching, not too big, not too small, not too short, not too tall - oh wait, wrong list, and available service opportunities.

there is certaintly not a lack of churches in madison. i like being an informed consumer so before i started the exhausting process of 'church shopping', i thought i'd do some research to narrow down the field of possible candidates. you might think this means looking up the distance from my house, service times, congregation size, etc. and perhaps i'll get to that at some point. but first, when a church proclaims to be 'reformed' or 'four-square' or even, 'non-denominational', i want to understand what that means. what do they believe, what do they teach? it's been a long time since i could rattle off the five points of calvinism, the arguments from lutheranism, and how arminianism felt about it all. i don't fall neatly into any of those schools of thought, but i want to know where a church stands. free will vs. predestination? limited vs. universal atonement? uncertainty vs. certainty of perseverance?

my grandpa told me that as long as the church is bible-based and preaches against sin and nancy pelosi, he would approve. with these standards in mind, first, a theological quest to understand the doctrine; second, service times. this should be easy.