A quick count reveals that over my many decades of Christian experience I've been a member of about 17 churches, mainly in Sydney. There are also another 7 or 8 churches in Cambridge, London, Wellington, Melbourne, New York, Rochester (Minn), Chicago (south) and country New South Wales that I've visited, spoken to people in, and gotten as much involved with as my time in those places allowed.
The denominations include Anglican (ranging from evangelical to so-called 'high' and anglo-catholic), Presbyterian, Baptist, Churches/Disciples of Christ, Lutheren and Bretheren (the open, not the closed variety).
In many of these churches I've had wonderful experiences, had warm and encouraging fellowship with my Christian brothers and sisters and through their variety, been introduced to aspects of Christian community that I would not have known if I'd stayed in the Presbyterian church of my early childhood: from the liturgical dance of the Chicago University Presbyterian Church to the gigantism of the Garden Grove Community Church (I think it was the name prior to the Crystal Cathedral being built), to the direct biblicalism of St. Helen's at Bishopsgate in London and the wonderful accepting fellowship of some Baptist and Bretheren churches.
I've found the warmest community in a Presbyterian Church in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, the most accepting, an anglo-catholic parish in Sydney, the most open, the Presbyterian Church in South Chicago, the most friendly, a couple of Baptist churches, in Sydney and country NSW. The most spiritually frank doesn't really get a mention above (it should, perhaps): an Assemblies of God church meeting in an inner Sydney suburb, tied with an Anglican curate in a nearby suburb's church. I've enjoyed friendly and accepting bible study groups in a Disciples of Christ church in New York city, Cambridge Baptist church and All Souls London. I've experienced the opposite in my very own city!
Many of these churches have mottos; many mottos are of the style "Proclaiming Christ and making disciples". Very biblical.
Oddly, none take as their motto anything like "living out the love we are called to show" or "helping harvest the fruit of the Spirit in each others' lives" (see Galatians 5:22). But the whole point of Christian witness is to change lives. If ours aren't the first to change, then what is the point?
I say this having some more recent church experiences that would seem to belie the results that faith is supposed to have. Plenty of 'good teaching'; but one wonders, when it is supported by a dearth of 'good living'!
