Church

Recommend a Church

Michelle Lesley

If you’re searching for a new church (rather than wanting to recommend one) click here.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I’m passionate about helping people find doctrinally sound churches to join. I’ve recently been updating my list of Reader Recommended Churches, but we can always use more recommendations for doctrinally sound churches, church search engines, and church planting organizations, especially in the states that don’t have very many recommendations and in countries outside the United States. So I’d love it if you’d help out by making a recommendation!

Please read this part carefully and in its entirety before recommending
a church.
👇👇👇

I really need your help with preliminary vetting here, readers. Please carefully read and follow the guidelines and instructions below so your recommendation won’t be deleted or rejected.

  • You must have a personal connection (ex: you’re a member or recent former member, you know the pastor personally, etc.) to the church you’re recommending
  • Please check this list to see if the church you’re recommending is already listed. (It takes time for me to weed out recommendations of churches that are already listed.)
  • Please check this link to see if the church search engine or church planting organization you’re recommending is already listed. (Read carefully. The Master’s Seminary, Founders, G3, Grace Advance, and several others are already listed.)

The following types of churches, church search engines, and church planting organizations will not be added to the list (due to doctrinal or other issues)1:

  • United Methodist Churches
  • Calvary Chapel churches (continuationist)
  • Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) churches (continuationist, egalitarian, social justice)
  • Continuationist churches
  • Any church that believes/teaches entire sanctification/sinless perfection
  • Any church that believes/teaches a genuinely regenerated Christian can lose or forfeit his salvation
  • Churches that consider Calvinism/Reformed theology to be false teaching
  • KJV Only churches (Churches which consider the King James Version to be the only acceptable and/or inspired translation of the Bible. Churches which merely prefer using the KJV are fine.)
  • Any church that uses music from Bethel, Jesus Culture, Hillsong, Elevation, Maverick City, anyone connected with these groups (such as Phil Wickham), Catholics, non-Christians, or any other contemporary musician who isn’t doctrinally sound.
  • Any church that uses or recommends books and materials from false teachers. (This includes churches recommending or affiliated with The Gospel Coalition. {woke, platforms women who preach to men})
  • Any church that violates Scripture’s teaching on the role of women in the church (1 Timothy 2:11-3:7). This includes, but is not necessarily limited to: churches with a female bearing the title of “pastor” (of anything) or “elder,” churches which allow women to function in pastoral roles without the title of pastor / elder (for example: female ministers of music or worship leaders; discipleship “facilitators” or “directors” who essentially function as elders / associate pastors, and so on), churches which allow women to preach to, hold unbiblical authority over, or instruct men or co-ed groups in the Scriptures (for example: teaching / co-teaching co-ed adult Sunday School / Bible study classes or home / small groups).
  • Any church that does not have a detailed statement of faith (“What we believe,” “Doctrinal statement,” etc.) or link to such.
  • Any church that does not have the pastor’s name (and pastoral staff / elders, if any) listed on its website.
  • Any church that does not have a website (a social media page alone is not enough).

If the church, church search engine, or church planting organization you’re considering recommending meets the criteria above, I’d love to consider it! Please comment below with:

  • The full, correctly spelled name of the church, church search engine, or church planting organization
  • The city and state, or city and country the church is located in
  • The church’s, church search engine’s, or church planting organization’s website. Submissions without websites will not be considered and will be automatically deleted.

I apologize if this is inconvenient, but I’m really going to need you to make your recommendation in a comment on this article, rather than a social media comment or private message, email, or comment on another article. That way, I’ll have all the recommendations in one place and I won’t miss yours.

Just a reminder, I handle all comments manually, so your comment will not appear immediately. When I add (or decline to add) your church to the list, I’ll post your comment and let you know whether or not I’ve added your church. Please do not submit your recommendation multiple times because you think I haven’t responded quickly enough. It takes time to sort through and delete multiple submissions for the same church/organization.

I vet every church that’s submitted, so it may take me a while (possibly several weeks to several months) to get to your recommendation depending on how many submissions I receive (last time it was well over 100). Your patience is appreciated.

Thanks so much for helping your brothers and sisters in Christ find a good, solid church!

1I am not saying any church or person who falls into one of these categories is automatically a heretic, unsaved, or a horrible person/church. These are merely the requirements for a church to be on this particular list because these are the requirements most of the people who use this list are looking for.

129 thoughts on “Recommend a Church”

    1. Hi Lisa- Thanks so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline to list it, since there is a woman in the position of “Music and Worship Director”. This is a pastoral position, and women serving in pastoral positions is one of the exclusions listed above.

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    1. Hi Kelly Jo- Thank you so much for taking the time to recommend your church. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline to list it. I cannot, in good conscience list a church that financially supports Cru. Over the past several years, Cru has become extraordinarily woke, egalitarian, and has compromised on the biblical position on gender and homosexuality.

      And, from one Southern Baptist to another, in case you weren’t aware, NAMB has also become very problematic. They are woke, they plant churches with women “pastors,” and they have (in the recent past, not sure if they’re still doing this) even required their church planters to teach a false gospel. You can find more info here: The (False) Gospel According to NAMB. Due to these issues, my church, and a number of other SBC churches now designate our SBC offerings so that nothing goes to NAMB.

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  8. I recently left one of the churches on the list – Cornerstone Bible Church in Glendora, California. The Worship Director is a woman, and some of the songs included a caption crediting Bethel. Overall they preach the Gospel from the Bible, yet I heard a few apologies for “making you feel guilty” or asking for permission to “preach”. It softened the delivery of the complete message.

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    2. I’m sorry! I must have overlooked that… even though I read the directions. 🙃 Thanks for compiling this important resource and being careful about the churches included on the list. It’s getting more difficult these days to find solid churches, so this is valuable!

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    1. Hi Emily- Thanks so much for taking the time to recommend this church. I have a couple of quick questions:

      1. On the About >> Our Team page, both a man (Luke) and a woman (Trina) are listed as “team leaders” of the “worship team”. I’m not sure exactly what that means. Does Trina function as the minister of music (choosing the music for the worship service, leading the congregational singing, etc.)?

      2. On the church Facebook page there’s a recent (“4 days ago” as I’m writing this) post / photo which appears to be showing the worship team leading the Matt Maher song, “Lord, I Need You”. Matt Maher is Catholic, which is one of the exclusions listed the requirements above. I can’t find anywhere on the website / socials where I can examine Doxa’s music. Would you happen to know if this Matt Maher song was a one off, or if Doxa typically uses his and/or other music covered in the exclusion above?

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      1. Hello,

        Trina is not the music minister, she is the pastor’s wife. I don’t believe she is in charge of anything besides being a lead female vocal. I can ask her husband to double check.
        I do assume that they don’t realize who the writer of the song Lord, I need you. I can ask the pastor, Matt Thibault if there is a list of songs the use.

        I do not attend there….I attend Grace Church of the Valley in Kingsburg. Matt Thibault worked at our church and attended the remote Masters Seminary location at our church. I have listened to him preach the Word often. So, you can know my connection with the church.
        Doxa church is a newer church, maybe 3 years. Let me know if you have any questions, thank you, Emily de Graaf.
        I will get back to you ASAP!

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      2. Hi Emily- Thanks so much for your reply. I don’t want to ask you to go out of your way on this. I’ll give Doxa the benefit of the doubt and go ahead and list them. If, in the future, you happen to find out that they do typically use music from any of the sources mentioned above, or any other unbiblical source, just let me know and I’ll removed them. Thanks again!

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  12. Emmanuel Baptist Church, 5391 Johnson Rd, Coconut Creek, Florida 33073

    my husband and I are members, surprised it’s not already on your list, because it’s on the good church finder websites. That’s how we found it originally .Part of the Reformed Baptist Network of churches.

    sadly, South Florida (Miami, Ft Lauderdale/West palm Beach area) is lacking in doctrinally sound churches, but this church is solid!

    EBCFL.org

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      1. Hi Michelle,

        Thanks for the reply, and thank you for your ministry, it has greatly helped me and my family while we searched for a sound church, among all of the other help you provide to women wanting to follow the Lord. The main counselor has his own website, in addition to being a member of the church. Full disclosure, he and his wife are friends of our family. He is ACBC certified and has a D Min from Southern Seminary. He had the website prior to moving to Florida, that’s why the Emmanuel/Immanuel spelling LOL.

        ImmanuelBiblicalCounseling.com

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    1. Hi there- Thanks so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to decline to list it at this time because, unless I’ve missed it, I’m not seeing a statement of faith on the website. If the church decides to add a statement of faith page, you’re more than welcome to re-submit, and I’ll be glad to consider this church for inclusion on the list.

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    1. Hi Carolyn- Thank you so much for taking the time to submit your church. One of the requirements for inclusion on the list is that the pastor (and other ministerial staff, if any) be listed on the website. Unless I’ve missed it, I’m not seeing that on the website. If your church decides to add that information, please feel free to resubmit, and I’ll be happy to consider it.

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  20. Hi Michelle, I would like to recommend the church where my wife and I are members. We came out of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement a few years ago and found this wonderful Reformed Baptist church. It has been a joy to sit under solid expositional Bible preaching, biblically-qualified elders, and to be a part of this loving church family.

    Grace Church
    Smyrna, TN
    https://www.gracesmyrna.org/

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    1. Hi Jeff- Thank you so much for taking the time to submit your church for consideration. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I have to decline to list it, due to the pastors’ position paper on Men and Women in the Church. Although the restrictions given in the summary on p.6 are good and right, #1 potentially allows women to serve in a number of unbiblical roles, and the “Life Groups, Cohorts…” section on page 7, specifically allows women to teach/co-teach co-ed small groups, which is one of the exclusions in my parameters above.

      Additionally, a few of the authors on the “recommended books” page are problematic, particularly Aimee Byrd, who is now a full blown egalitarian.

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    1. Hi Patrice- Thanks so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to decline to list it for a couple of reasons:

      1. Unless I’m somehow missing it, I don’t see the name of the pastor listed anywhere on the website. This is one of the requirements above.

      2. The women’s ministry and young adult ministry pages list current and past studies by, and recommendations of books by false teachers, including Francis Chan, Eugene Peterson, Tony Evans, and Jennie Allen. This is one of the exclusions listed above.

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      1. So sorry! 🤦🏻‍♀️

        cbckaty.org – Cornerstone Bible

        flatlandbible.com – Flatland Bible Church

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      2. No worries! Thanks for submitting these churches. I’ve added Cornerstone. I’m afraid I can’t add Flatland at this time, because unless I’m somehow missing it, I don’t see anywhere on the website where the name of the pastor (and any other ministerial staff) is listed. That’s one of the exclusions listed above. If Flatland should add a pastor/staff page, I’d be delighted for you to re-submit it so I can consider it for inclusion on the list.

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    1. Hi Alyssa- Thank you so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline to list it. Here’s why:

      I observed Hillsong music being used in the worship service. That’s one of the exclusions in the criteria above.

      There’s a slide titled “Love Packages” on the Resources >> News page and in the pre-service slide show that depicts Experiencing God and The Purpose Driven Life as books being collected/given away. Experiencing God teaches the false doctrine of extra-biblical revelation, and Rick Warren is an egregious false teacher. Whether or not these two specific books have ever actually been given away, the fact that the CBC views them as appropriate and biblical enough to showcase them to the church as good books to donate and give away (exporting false doctrine from the church) gives me serious pause as to the pastors’ discernment.

      Likewise the inclusion of books by Elyse Fitzpatrick, Skye Jethani, and Tony Evans on the Resources >>> Amazon Smile page. This is also one of the exclusions in the criteria above.

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    1. Hi Laurie- Thank you so much for taking the time to submit this church. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to decline to list it. The Spotify playlist on the worship ministry page indicates that this church uses music from Hillsong, Elevation, Phil Wickham, Matt Maher (Catholic), and Audrey Assad (Catholic). This is one of the exclusions in the criteria above.

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  28. Michelle Lesley- Discipleship for Christian Women My church is on the list but the link is spammy. How do I send you the updated link!? It’s in Arkansas. The Bible church of Cabot.

    https://www.biblechurchofcabot.com

    thanks so much! I’m so thankful for your website and the resource that it is!

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    1. Hi Shawna- Thank you so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Something seems to be wrong with the church’s website. I tried copying and pasting the web address you’ve given here, and it gave me a “404 Forbidden” error. The same thing happened when I Googled the church and clicked on the the church’s site on Google, as well as the church’s site on its Facebook page. If you could leave me another comment whenever the website is back up and running, I’ll be delighted to check it out.

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  33. Hi Michelle, I’d like to recommend Miami Bible Church (www.miamibiblechurch.org). I’ve been a member there for almost 11 years. The pastor is David Diez and he is a graduate of The Masters Seminary. It’s a biblically sound church and I’m so thankful to be a member. God bless you.

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      2. I put it under Hialeah because the website says the church’s physical address is “631 E. 1st Avenue, Hialeah, FL 33010”. Is that address no longer correct?

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      4. I get that, but since the church gives it as the address, and since people will need to put it into their map apps, I think I’m going to go ahead and leave it under Hialeah. Thanks again for the recommendation.

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      5. Okay, no problem. Just a minor correction to the city name – it’s missing an “a” after the “i.” It’s spelled Hileah; it’s Hialeah. Thank you so much for your ministry and for putting this list together. God bless you.

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  36. I would like to recommend a Calvary Chapel in Nampa, Idaho. My husband and I are very close to the pastor and his wife. They word by word from the Bible and speak against false teachers. This was the first Church that we have ever been so involved with. That being said Pastors have a hard job. I feel for them working with broken people. It amazes me when truth is spoken straight from the Bible some people have a problem with it and attacks the Pastor and cause division in the church. I know this is a Calvary Chapel but not all Calvary Chapels are the same. I love my Church family. Her is the website: https://mountainheights.church

    Thank you for your time,

    Bonnie

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    1. Hi Bonnie- I’m sure your church is wonderful, as many CC churches are, but I don’t list CC churches for two reasons:

      1. Last time I checked, the CC statement of faith holds to continuationism, and I don’t list continuationist churches, as stated in the criteria.

      2. I know that when the split occurred several years ago that there were a number of churches on the biblical side of the split who retained the identity of “CC,” but it would take a tremendous amount of time to research every CC church that’s submitted to discover whether it is one of the biblical ones or not.

      I’m so sorry, but I can’t make an exception for you without making an exception for everyone who recommends a CC church. That being said, I will leave your comment up, and anyone who sees it and would like to visit has the website and can do so.

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  38. Hi Michelle! My church in Olathe Kansas fits the criteria for recommendation. It is New Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA).

    My family has moved around a bit and I am familiar with some of the churches on the list. What a great resource.

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    1. Hi Lisa- Thank you so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline to re-add it. It was on the list at one time, but I removed it a few years ago when a reader credibly reported to me that the pastor/church was exhibiting social justice tendencies. It was apparently concerning enough for this family to leave the church over.

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  40. Hi Michelle, I am happy to recommend Newland Church of Wheatridge in Colorado.

    Pastor Michael Rice is doctrinally sound and I am thrilled to say that he attended the Masters Seminary.

    ncwheatridge.com

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    1. Hi Amy- Thanks so much for taking the time to recommend this church. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to decline to list it for several reasons:

      +The “distinctives” page is, ironically, vague enough that it’s difficult to tell exactly where this church stands on continuationism, prophecy, and the role of women. The “spiritual gifts” section implies that they are continuationist in belief, if not in practice. Continuationism is one of the exclusions listed above.

      +The women’s ministry page lists an upcoming study of The Bible Recap.

      +Last Sunday, there was a guest speaker who spoke on the topic of biblical archaeology in place of the sermon.

      +I observed Phil Wickham and Hillsong music being used in the worship service. This is another one of the exclusions listed above.

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      1. <

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        div dir=”ltr”>Hi Michelle,

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        div>Good morning! Thank you for taking the time to consider my suggestion. I was unaware of the intenti

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  42. Thank you for this wonderful list and the opportunity to add to it. We are so grateful for this rock solid church in the Hudson Valley NY. Hymns are sung here!

    Netherwood Baptist – a 1689 LBC , 1211 Netherwood Road, Salt Point, NY 12578

    NetherwoodBaptist.com

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    1. Added. Thank you! (Just a suggestion for the pastor: Y’all might want to consider putting a link to the full text of the 1689 somewhere on the website (unless I overlooked it?) like this one or possibly this one, in modern English, from Founders. I’m familiar with it, but some visiting your website might not be. Just a thought. :0)

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  45. Pillar Church of Jacksonville, NC

    http://www.pillarjax.com

    we don’t have senior pastors, but instead a plurality of elders.

    you have listed Pillar Church of Stafford, VA on your list. These and quite a few others are listed through the Praetorian Project, which is a church planting organization whose mission is to plant biblically sound churches around military bases. There are currently 13 churches, with 2 others being planted next year, and several more in the near future in other locations.

    their website is http://www.praetorianproject.org

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    1. Hi Kendra- Thanks so much for the recommendations. I’ve added Pillar Jax here and The Praetorian Project (very excited to read about their work!) to both the church search engine list and the church planting list at the Searching for a new church? tab.

      A quick FYI about the church’s website: The link for the church’s Facebook page on the “Connecting with You…” page of the website is incorrect. It’s: https://www.facebook.com/PillarJax

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  50. Harbins Community Baptist Church in Dacula, GA.

    Harbinschurch.org.

    We are members here and my husband is an elder. (I apologize if you already received this submission. I have tried to post it twice but it keeps glitching on me so I wasn’t sure if it went through.)

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    1. Hi Madelyn- This church used to be on my list, but I removed it a while back after receiving a credibly substantiated suggestion to remove it due to internal (not doctrinal) issues which I will not go into either publicly or privately (i.e. I will not discuss this or disclose who made the suggestion via email, DM, etc.). I have subsequently received several requests to re-add this church, with assurances that it’s a wonderful church.

      I’ve had this sort of “he said / she said” situation with church recommendations happen a handful of times, and since I have no way of knowing all of the ins and outs of whatever might or might not be going on (nor do I have the time or bandwidth to get in the middle of it), the policy I have developed is to err on the side of caution and decline to list the church. However, I will leave your comment up, with the name and website of the church, so that anyone who sees it can feel free to visit and evaluate the church for him/herself.

      I appreciate that you took the time to make a submission, but will not be adding this church back to the list in the foreseeable future.

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    1. Caroline, honey, I have received your recommendation three times now. I promise I’m going to get to it in the order in which it was received. Did you get a chance to read this part of the article above?

      “Just a reminder, I handle all comments manually, so your comment will not appear immediately. When I add (or decline to add) your church to the list, I’ll post your comment and let you know whether or not I’ve added your church. Please do not submit your recommendation multiple times because you think I haven’t responded quickly enough. It takes time to sort through and delete multiple submissions for the same church/organization.

      I vet every church that’s submitted, so it may take me a while (possibly several weeks to several months) to get to your recommendation depending on how many submissions I receive (last time it was well over 100). Your patience is appreciated.”

      Your turn is coming, I promise. Sit tight, and thank you so much for submitting. :0)

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