The church I am now talking about is the place where people gather to fellowship and grow in their faith. The question I want to address is, is there such a thing as a perfect church or group of believers who are perfect in all their ways and doctrines?

Now I am not talking about a group of churches which includes every denomination or type of church such as Jehova's Witnesses, Catholics and Mormons etc who hold blatantly unscriptural doctrines: I am talking about Protestant churches which profess true Biblical faith. This can include baptists, methodists, presbyterians etc and any Protestant organisation.

Many Christians, especially newly converted ones, put a great deal of care into selecting a good church to attend.

People are rightly concerned about attending a good, God fearing church which will preach a true Gospel and teach sound doctrine.

I am often asked how to find or where to find a perfect and good church to attend. The question is, does such a church exist?

The reality is that people are pro ne to error. There is not a single perfect person on earth. Unfortunately, I dont believe a single perfect church exists anywhere in the world, because each will by human nature have some or other minor error.

Note: MINOR error. Not major error.

The best advice I can give when looking for a good church is to look at the leadership and observe their attitude towards the preaching of the Gospel.

There are a few questions I think you should ask yourself about the church you are considering attending, to help you with your decision:

1. Does the church submit to the Bible as the sufficient and inerrant Word of God?

Unbelievable as it may seem, some churches actually deny some of what the Bible teaches and replace it with what they deem to be acceptable. They dilute or try to explain away things. For example, they might say that the Bible has errors and we are free to use our own discernment to decide whether something is acceptable or not. Stay away from them.

2. Is the church and its teachings, activities built on the Bible as its foundation?

Or do they lean on worldly philosophies, church growth strategies, fashions etc to keep their benches filled on Sundays?

3. Do they preach about sin?

There are a lot of churches and even famous preachers and TV evangelists who preach a ''prosperity gospel'', and they will tell their congregations all sorts of things to boost their self esteem and make them feel good about themselves. Joel Osteen is one of them. They typically preach about prosperity and wealth and personal gratification. Like Joel Osteen's book, Live Your Best Life Now.

Generally these churches will never want to rain on your parade or make you feel bad, they only want to make you feel happy about yourself, which is very dangerous for your soul.

For example, when Joel Osteen was asked about this in a radio interview, he openly said that his ministry did not want to preach about sin or make people feel bad about themselves. He just wants to boost self esteem and help people live a nice life.

The Holy Spirit has nothing to do with any church whose ministry has nothing to do with sin.

This is because the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to convict people of their sins and bring them to repentance and conformance to God's will and the image of Christ.

All of the Old Testament prophets, Jesus Christ, the apostles, Paul.... They all preached about sin, the dangers of sin, and the need for repentance. Even in the book of Romans, Paul begins the book by using the first 3 chapters to speak almost exclusively about the sin of man and our need for repentance and God's grace.

If a church does not preach about sin, how will the congregation be convicted of their sins and be brought to repentance and the realization of their need for salvation?

4. Does the church preach the true Gospel?