Instead of asking, “Where will I live?” we should ask, “Who will be my community?” Believers are given a community in the spiritual brothers and sisters found in their local church. To be connected to that community in a healthy way, it needs to be local.

I recently had to make a decision—a decision I haven’t had to make in over ten years.

Where would my family and I go to church?

For about a decade, I served on church staff, so this decision was simply part of the job—a choice made through an interview process. When you work vocationally at a church, you don’t wake up on Sundays wondering which faith family you’ll join for worship that morning.

In the last year, I transitioned from local church vocational ministry to state convention ministry. My current role serves churches all over the state, so as long as we attend a Southern Baptist church within a reasonable distance of the convention office, we could live and attend church anywhere we wanted. Suddenly, we were faced with finding a new physical home for our family and a new spiritual home—a new faith family.

Options for housing were endless and included multiple considerations: availability, price, safety of the neighborhood, school district, distance to work, shopping, grocery stores, restaurants, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, garage, yard size—the list could go on and on. Buying a house can be overwhelming. One way to simplify the process is by choosing your church before choosing your address.

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