Membership with Two Churches?

Hello Prissy,

My name is D. and I don't believe it's wrong to belong to two different churches but at the same time when you say that you go to gatherings with your daughters in your home town and out of town, are these the two churches that you are in fellowship with?

When we say membership, what does that really mean? I believe it means that you are committed to the "vision" of that particular church and its' leader (pastor). You are committed to following all of its by-laws and mission statement without hinderance.

You would have to think also about how this may affect my personal walk with the Lord. Does one church teach differently than the other or are they both teaching good sound doctrine according to Jeremiah 3:15 which reads, "And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding."

You then too have to ask yourself, "why do I love both churches?" Is it because of the word of God that I'm being fed? Is it because I can feel the presence of God when I'm in the midst of the believer's? When after I've left the assembly do I know how to continue in my quiet time with God that there may be a building of intimacy between myself and my Father in heaven? Or is it just because of the gatherings that my daughters and I enjoy the most?

There are more than one question you must ask yourself, again I don't believe that there is anything wrong as far as I know with being a member of two churches. But I do believe that maybe God is wanting you to come closer to Him and look at Him and love Him more than these two churches.

This could be why the question has come up within yourself, I believe He's wanting you to get with Him more often and to get to a place where they (the pastor) is really feeding you the meat of God's holy word and in turn helping you to draw closer to Him as your one and only complete source.

Be Blessed and I hope this helps

I don't think anything is wrong with joining 2 churches. I was a member of 2 different churches when I was single because my "home" church didn't really have a good singles group.
I will be a member of 2 churches in the near future. I have to become a parishner at one so I can get a good rate on my kids school tuition, but I want to continue going to my current church.
The only thing you have to figure out is tithing/offering (if you do that). Do you give all to your "home" church or split it between them, etc.

We also just came from having two churches. The one I grew up in am raising my dd in (Catholic). Then my father-in-law started studying to become a preacher in the Wesleyan church so we went there also to show our support.
I still consider my home parish to be the Catholic church and now that we are 1100 miles away, we will find another Catholic church to call home.
I think that if one feels like home to you and another feels like home to your daughters then that is great. I would go where ever I had to in order for my child closer to God. I don't think the social aspects of church should be discounted. These are great tools to connect us all.
Do what feels right to you.

The only thing I would point out is that if you become a member of a church it affects their funding, i.e. they get less assistance if they have more members. So if you're not going to both churches regularly and tithing, I would suggest not putting yourself on the member roll officially of both of them.

Personally, I don't think you should join a church unless you are devoted to that church. You can't really be devoted to two churches... that is kind of like having two spouses.

maybe you shouldn't join either at this point. pray that God will lead you where He wants you to join.
good luck

I am having a similar problem. My husband is Nigerian and when we got married we were going to a Nigerian church, which is now 2 hours from home. We have 3 small kids and I felt I was not getting anything from the church as it was focused on relating to Nigerians and I didn't get the lingo. We feel that both pastors are true men of God and preach the word properly. But my husband feels that since we left the Nigerian church almost 2 years ago, while he is learning his connection with God, hearing God's direction has been lost. He wants to get back into his old routine with his old church. He wants me to support him. But in supporting him he wants us to go to that church sometimes and it takes away from my time and commitments to our current church.

We want to stay one, but do not get what we need from the other's church. Should we stay one and try to be a part of both. Or should I be 100% loyal to one church while he is 100% loyal to another?

Thanks.