“Stop Looking for the Perfect Church!” (so they say!😉)

“Stop looking for the perfect church!” This has been a clichéd diktat for as long as I can remember, to be thrown in the face of anyone who actually (horror of horrors!) wants to exercise right-thinking spiritual discernment when looking around to see if there happens to be a body of believers around his or her area which is not part of the “Slide”, the pernicious downgrade in quality and spirituality which seems to have affected every area of life today, including that of the visible church. (NB: I use the term “visible church” to describe the body of professing ‘Christianity’ which the world sees when it looks in our direction, as opposed to the true church, “the Ekklesia” of ‘called-out ones’ — which is the real meaning of the Greek word ekklesia —  the body of Christ).

I have heard the above diktat, “Stop looking for the perfect church!”, so many times that I am convinced that it is part of a smokescreen to bring discerning disciples of Christ (who are a threat to so many ministries) under the control of churches which are anything but perfect (often quite the reverse). Here’s the truth: I have never actually known anyone who is looking for a perfect church. Never. Only an imbecile would do that in this world. Yet, you can be accused of doing so simply by exercising discernment in where you place yourself in this life. But one has to draw the line somewhere concerning the characteristics and quality of a locally-gathered body of those who profess to be disciples of Christ if one wants to thrive and grow and not become a clone in a professing “Christian” sausage-factory or, worse, a body which functions more or less as a cult.

All the people I know or who have come to me for counsel wondering if there is a worthy body of believers in their area have a very reasonable and necessary checklist of characteristics which represent not a “perfect church” but one in which they can grow as individual disciples without being herded into a highly-controlled corral as if they were conformist cattle. That checklist of characteristics includes the following considerations:

• The majority of those gathering in any local body of folks must clearly be saved and hungry for the truth. (I say “the majority” rather than “all” because I know that there is no such thing as a perfect church 😉). A local body of believers should primarily consist of… believe it or not… believers! The Bible’s word for “church” is ἐκκλησία, ekklesia, which is a compound of ἐκ, ek, ‘from’, and καλέω, kaleo, ‘to call’. The church — the true church, which is not at all the same as the “visible church” which has not been called — has been called out by God from the world to be a potent and infectious influence across that world. Of course, one must still welcome seeking unbelievers who turn up to check things out. Such hospitality is vital. But that does not violate the fact that the majority should be saved in order to avoid an unhealthy imbalance.
• Any elders in that local body of ‘called-out ones’ should ALL clearly be male, saved, wise, gracious, compassionate, not lording it over the flock (1 Peter 5:3), who are maturely beyond being triggered or offended by people or situations, who have clearly denied themselves and have taken up their crosses.
• Consider the fact that a local body of devout and worshipful believers does not need a “worship leader”. In many of the churches where I have seen a “worship leader” used, it is in order to manipulate the flock in the direction of a particular kind of worship which extols charismatic principles and practices. This is because a worshipful state of mind — which should actually be our state of mind every minute of every day rather than just for an hour or two on a Sunday! — is so often misinterpreted as being in an ‘altered state of consciousness’, so that worship is not perceived to have happened unless one is in some kind of a trance (you know, closed eyes, arms waving around in the air, mouth muttering gibberish, etc.).  It is in this sense that so much today of what passes itself off as “worship” is simply mesmeric occult experience (as I have mapped in detail in my book, “The Serpent and the Cross”, now available as a free eBook here: https://diakrisis-project.com/2026/08/20/the-serpent-the-cross-is-now-available-for-download-as-a-free-ebook/ ).
• Discerning folks who are looking for a local body of believers to be part of do not want one which engages in the ‘new style of worship’ because they know that it has a hidden agenda. All those soppy effeminate choruses and songs will not be attractive to those who know what really lies behind them. (For more info on that, please read my 97-page eBook on this subject: https://diakrisis-project.com/2023/11/07/o-lord-open-our-lips-church-hymnody-and-worship-in-history-and-today-including-an-expose-of-the-hidden-agenda-behind-the-new-style-of-worship/ ).
• A discerning disciple of Christ who is looking for a local group of genuine believers to be part of does not want to get involved with a charismatic/Pentecostal setup which promotes unbiblical beliefs and practices. Even though such a body may have believers in the congregation, a discerning explorer does not want to have to regularly cringe in meetings, for he knows what effect all this can have on the mindset of those who get caught up in it. He also does not want to have folks telling him that he needs certain dodgy experiences if he wants to be a fully-fledged “higher life” Christian with an extra-special hotline to God. Also, many of these churches (especially those in the New Apostolic Reformation movement) claim that there are apostles and prophets today just like the Apostles and Prophets in the early church, which is a terrible heresy that has led to numerous other issues, as these false apostles and prophets of today claim such high authority. (For more info on all this and other charismatic nonsense, please read my 167-page eBook on this subject: (For more info on all this, please read my 167-page eBook on this subject: https://diakrisis-project.com/2023/05/13/new-book-signs-wonders-divine-revelation-the-gifts-of-the-spirit-their-abuses-in-todays-churches/ ). One definitely does not want to be part of these churches. In fact, run many miles from them!
• I would advise avoiding so-called megachurches. A problem is that so many churches these days — with even up to tens of thousands of members — have become so huge that they do not fulfil the requirement of being part of a small locality where everything is personal and evangelism can be neighbourly. A gathering of disciples should be El Vecindario not Las Vegas. Of course, megachurches can raise more money to buy their pastors fancier cars and private jets. However, it is not money which “makes the church go round” but the Spirit of God. Multi-millionaire pastors are such a bad look. I don’t know how they have the nerve!
• A discerning disciple of Christ who is looking for a local group of genuine believers to be part of does not want to get involved with a theologically-liberal mainstream ‘church’ which promotes a so-called “diversity” and an “inclusivity” which contradict Bible truths and which undermine so many essential Bible teachings.
• A discerning disciple of Christ who is looking for a local group of genuine believers to be part of has to be extremely careful when encountering a church with what he regards as a wayward understanding of eschatology (teaching about the Endtimes. I know that this may be offensive to some who would consider eschatology to be a “secondary issue”, but certain eschatological beliefs have consequences for other aspects of the spiritual life. One may be able to turn a blind eye to certain differences such as various millennial ideas (provided they do not take on the status of a main preaching subject!). But, for example, the notion of a pre-tribulational “rapture” will have huge pastoral fallout in the lives of those professing Christians who believe it when they discover that the tribulation has begun and they are still around to experience it! The pre-tribulational “rapture” is a false teaching which must be resisted. Therefore, anyone who has seen through that teaching will not be at all comfortable in a church which teaches it as a major doctrine (as many do). The same goes for Dispensationalism, which wrongly divides history into dispensations, ultimately issuing in the unbiblical philosophy of Zionism in the churches, the idea of the secret “rapture”, along with an unconditional (and unbiblical) support for the modern state of Israel (for more info on this see my 120-page eBook: https://diakrisis-project.com/2022/12/06/new-entirely-updated-120-page-ebook-abraham-our-father-jerusalem-our-mother/ ).
• A discerning disciple of Christ who is looking for a local group of genuine believers to be part of will not want to get involved with one of the many churches today which adopt a strictly Semi-Pelagian view of salvation, which teaches that unregenerated human beings can take the first step toward God using their own free will. This is a complete reversal of Bible truth, which is that unbelievers are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1) and thus incapable of taking that first step towards God, and that it was God exclusively who “made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!”, and that it is “not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9; see also Colossians 2:13). The predominant semi-Pelagian view in so many churches today will have profound consequences for evangelism (being responsible for many ‘easy-believist’ false conversions), not to mention a distorted view of the power of God who they see as wringing His hands in the sidelines, as it were, helplessly waiting for us to “make a decision”. That thought is so hideous that it borders on blasphemy. Before one is saved and regenerated by God, one has no freewill in relation to salvation. That is why Paul describes unbelievers as “dead”. To paraphrase Augustine: Before the Fall, Posse peccare, posse non peccare; able to sin, able not to sin. Adam had freewill. After the Fall, Non posse non peccare; not able not to sin. No freewill in that respect. After being saved and regenerated, Posse non peccare; able not to sin. The freewill not to sin is restored in believers. Once in heaven, Non posse peccare; not able to sin. Do you really want to be in one of the many churches which teach that unbelievers have freewill to choose the good and to come to the Lord of their own volition? It is a heresy and was condemned as such in the churches of the West at the Council of Orange in AD 529.
• A discerning disciple of Christ who is looking for a local group of genuine believers to be part of must have, as an absolute priority, the seeking out of what I call “a Word of God church”, in which the central plank of everything is the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible is taught right through. This is what distinguished the early church gatherings in the time of the Apostles. As New Testament scholar, R.P. Martin, says in his interesting book on worship in the early church: “The Christ-centered nature of Christian worship is one of the most clearly attested facts of the New Testament literature” (R.P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1964, p.131). Acts 17:2-3 suggests that Paul preached through a theme on three consecutive sabbaths — that Christ must suffer, that He must rise again, and that He is the Messiah prophe­sied in the Old Testament. Ralph Martin also states that in the early church the reading and exposition of the Scriptures is “an inheritance we have received, through the early church, from the worship of Judaism, and which makes the model Christian service a Word-of-God service” (R.P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1964, p.69). This is immensely significant for what I am trying to communicate in this little piece. From the outset, the centrality of church worship and church life was a “Word-of-God service”. Emblazon that in your hearts and minds! The truths of the Bible were at the heart of worship. Paul said to the pastor, Timothy, “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation [i.e., preaching], and to teaching [i.e., biblical and pastoral instruction]” (1 Timothy 4:13). This is what should be at the forefront of a church that a faithful disciple seeks to be part of. If it is not there, or if it is there but is undermined by other things which the church practises or teaches, then that is no place for the diligent disciple of Christ.

A discerning disciple of Christ who is looking for a local group of genuine believers to be part of has every right to check out as many churches as he wants on his quest. Even though he will be accused of so-called “church-hopping” by those who want to snag him as quickly as possible into any old church, he should not be deterred in his quest. What so many fail to realise is that being part of a church not only affects your depth (or not) of spirituality but it even has an effect on your DNA. This may not be a subject with which you are familiar. So here is an extract from my book, “War is Who We Are”:

“It is fair to say that our DNA could be regarded as the interface between our brain and our soul. This dovetails neatly with the science of Epigenetics, which shows that even any physical, emotional or moral influence which comes into us from outside — whether seen, heard, imbibed, eaten, smoked, absorbed, studied, kissed, or sexually embraced; whether it comes through a fluid (water, beverages, saliva, semen, vaginal secretions), a foodstuff, the air we breathe, words spoken to us, a philosophy, a relationship — in short, anything which we take into our system, whether mentally, physically, emotionally or spiritually, has the capacity to affect our DNA in powerful ways, for better or for worse. This is not to say that your actual basic DNA sequence can be fundamentally altered, but rather that all the above influences — i.e. everything which comes into you one way or another — can dynamically change the way that your organism actually reads DNA sequences. In other words, your immediate environment, by choice or by compulsion, can bring about epigenetic changes that will affect how your genes operate. Everything that we do, eat, drink, have sexual relations with, think, observe, listen to, breathe, believe or take on board as part of our life journey will alter us genetically, for better or for worse” (from “War is Who We Are”, available here: https://diakrisis-project.com/2022/11/10/new-book-war-is-who-we-are/ ).

This has huge implications for those who are part of any local body of believers at such intense levels of being as worship and learning. The church that you are in has a deep effect on you, not only from a spiritual standpoint but even right down to the depths of your DNA. That is serious and is why ensuring that you are in the right environment, taking into yourself the right material, and hanging out with the right people, is of paramount importance.

In my experience, many people in a great many churches (including many elders) are not at all developed spiritually and many are even quite personality-disordered, but most of the time it is disguised behind false smiles, rampant pietism, Bible jargon, Christian clichés and ‘butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-the-mouth’ smarminess — until someone challenges them in some innocuous manner. Consequently, there is no real place in a great many churches (possibly most) for someone who ‘tells it like it is’ or who wants to ‘get real’; someone who sees right through any gaslighting baloney; someone who understands how human psychology works, and how the power of suggestion and brainwashing techniques are used by manipulative people; someone who is not at all ignorant of Satan’s devices; someone who knows the difference between real authority and false authority; and someone who has a genuine love of truth and authenticity. Yet, this is precisely the kind of person who is very much needed in the halls of God’s people. However, such a person will not last long in most of those halls today, whether as a pastor or as a member of a congregation. If you have those characteristics, you will very quickly become a pariah in most of today’s churches and (ironically) you (like Elijah, so you’re in good company!) will be labelled as “a troublemaker in the church” by those who really pull the strings in the church (who, NB, may not necessarily be the eldership).

Many believe that because the visible ‘church’ is still called ‘church’ it must automatically mean that all those in it are genuine disciples of Christ. This is very far from the case. A great many churches function more or less as social clubs where members hope to annul their loneliness and isolation in a community meeting place, or they operate in a distinctly cultish manner which infantilises the congregation with a false authority and an overbearing strictness which does not reflect the Spirit of Christ — what is known as ‘heavy shepherding’. Far too many churches are based on unquestioning conformity and unhealthy, obsequious subservience to a pastor/priest/eldership, or they are dominated by a secret small body of manipulators at the heart of the congregation but which is not at all apparent at first glance to the majority of the congregants, if ever at all.

I still uphold that the vast majority of churches in the world are not environments which are suitable for the diligent and discerning disciple of Christ. Pertinently, ten minutes ago, a friend wrote to me based on her decades-long experience of the church scene, saying, “Most churches nowadays have a) female preachers/elders, b) are ‘accepting’ of everyone and increasingly politically correct or wildly charismatic, with excitement every week, and virtually no Biblical teaching”. This is the apostate reality of church life today — the kind of church life which those who say to you, “Stop looking for the perfect church!”, seem to want you to throw in your lot with! Do not under any circumstances allow yourself to be bullied by these folks. When professing Christians behave like pagans and reject the clear teaching of Scripture then one should not be involved with them. When Paul says, “Do not be discordantly joined together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14), that can surely be applied to any kind of very close relationship, including that with a gathering of local professing Christians. Just because they may reference ‘Christ’ with their lips and go through the motions of ‘churchism’, that is not a sign that they are the genuine article if they do and say all sorts of other things which undermine their superficially “Christian” pose.

Sadly, a great many people in congregations are very easily manipulated and, it has to be said, are very sleepy, passive, and allow conditions to prevail in churches which should have no place there. I have seen many congregants turn a blind eye to wrong-doing in their churches solely to maintain a quiet life and not rock the boat (and also because they are fearful of the leadership). One really does need to be an expert in group dynamics and crowd psychology these days to cut through the nonsense that one finds in so many churches. We are living in strange and extraordinary times right now in which apostasy is rampant, both in the world and especially in the visible church. Evil people and impostors (counterfeits) are everywhere, especially in the churches. For these reasons, the genuine ‘truthseeker’ (who is always also a truth-lover) is extremely hesitant about being a ‘joiner’ of anything these days and wants to do a great deal of ‘due diligence’ before committing. Such a person will be very discerning about partaking in organisations or groups of any kind, especially in the religious/spiritual scene, for they very often lead to mindless conformity, peer pressure, sectarian tendencies, false teachings and practices, coercion, ruthless authoritarian oversight, bullying, dominance by a complete smartass (or group of them) who have taken over, etc.

Instead, the genuinely spiritual truth-lover will maintain his or her distance emotionally, not getting sucked into any dramas or imbroglios, coolly assessing things for him/herself and will not be coerced into any tendentious ways of thinking or acting which are inimical to truth. In many churches, such people of perception and insight can have an extremely rocky ride and will not at all feel as if they have ‘found their tribe’. For such discerning people, a local ‘church’, if it is not a “Word of God” church, can feel like a prison rather than a spiritual home — the very opposite of what liberation in Christ should be all about.

Therefore, I defend to the uttermost the right of a genuine disciple of Christ to exercise the utmost discernment in the search for a suitable environment in which to flourish spiritually. Certain tendentious folks may harangue him by saying, “Stop looking for the perfect church!” But he will not be looking for a perfect church because he already knows that is impossible and he therefore does not need to be told that by someone with an agenda. He will not expect to find a perfect church because he is more aware than most that it does not exist! Nevertheless, he will not be pestered or bullied by those who want to force him into a gathering which does not meet the criteria that I have outlined above throughout the paragraphs of this little article. He does not want to forsake assembling with other genuine disciples of Christ but he will not be railroaded into making choices which do not enhance his spiritual pathway and which could even undermine his spiritual growth or assurance. That is the bottom line. Period. End of.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2026
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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