Struggling to find church home

I’ll see if I can figure out how to message you some options.

Give yourself some grace in finding the right church home. It took me years. Don’t jump into something you’re not sure about or ready for just because you’re feeling the pressure. Keep your conversation and heart open with God. He will lead you!!!

I see where you're coming from, but I want to maybe try and illustrate a different picture so you can see another perspective. It's not that there's a scale where at one end is "The church just does whatever and doesn't enforce anything" and the other end is "The church enforces its beliefs system 100%". 

It's more that the PRC, as an organization, has all these rules and implications of belief that are at odds with each other and enforced willy-nilly. It gives the appearance that the church has firm beliefs and an enforcement system with which to ensure its adherents truly believe it and lives their lives in accordance with it, but if you look behind the curtain you see it's just silly arbitrary nonsense. They're making it up as they go along, and they're claiming the Bible has always said those are the rules since the beginning of time. The rules aren't fully enforced because there are no rules. It's Calvinball, or more accurately, it's CalvinismBall.

Here's how it works: if you can make a reason for why something is a sin or a slight, and people believe you, then it is one. It's not about truth or enforcement of beliefs, it's a hierarchy game. The preachers, professors, council, and richest members are all at the top of the pyramid. You can enforce the rules downwards, but you can't enforce the rules upwards. If it were a plain set of rules determined by the Bible and applicable equally to all members, then rules could be enforced on everyone. That's clearly not the case, cough cough ^{Reverend Van Overloop} cough cough. It's less about enforcing some specific claim they say the Bible says, and more about wielding power. Look no further than the RPC/PRC schism. As long as disagreements happen going downwards in the pyramid, then the game continues happening. No one cares when some single mother gets tossed out of the game or somebody starts to question literal creationism gets tossed. If some girl makes claims she's getting abused by an upper member who makes the rules, none of the true believers will bat an eye when she gets tossed and the rule-maker stays, despite the rules saying "don't abuse". However if the disagreement happens by players in the same pyramid layer, ruh-roh. Andy Lanning's one of the rule-makers, so several players leave with him so they can start their own game because they don't want to play with you anymore. And in their rulebook, anyone playing by the other rules is a whore. Don't look at me, that's just the rules that the Bible says from the beginning of time. It's not our rules that are new, it's that your rules have changed due to creeping heresy, or whatever. Our rules have always been, and will always be the same. 

If it was a scale thing, then members could disagree and just "go in peace". They can't do that though, because extending graciousness and humility of belief is against the rules of CalvinismBall. One of the rules is that you're in the truest church. Ain't no "go in peace" if you're leaving The Truth™. You just gotta be so damn sure that the rules you're playing by are correct and people are leaving because they broke the rules, so every exit from the organization has to be some big thing. One of the rules is that you can't question the rules. Just ask Reverend Dick.

That's not how most churches work. There's no grace in that system. It spits out victims with reckless abandon. You can't acknowledge the victims, that's also one of the rules.

If you try to suss out the rules and write them down, you'll go absolutely insane. They don't work like that. We've talked about this on the forum elsewhere a couple of times. Usually I'd link a thread here, but I can't seem to find it.

There are rules that are still on the unofficial books, though, that are too ubiquitously broken to be pointed out. The two off the top of my head are drama and "worldly music". It can't be controlled anymore, so all that happens is people try to bring it up less. The rule never changed. People just have an unspoken agreement not to bring up the rule while they're breaking it.

Wow.. everything you say, Prnolonger, is right on the money … yikes indeed ..

I wouldn't be caught dead in any of these "churches"... they're just as bad. Reformed baptist?  Horrible.  Of course you do what you want.

Struggling to find a new church home: which CHURCH to affiliate with. In the PRCA when you drink the Kool-Aid and become one of the congregation, there is the expectation that you will jump ALL IN....make the ham buns, pay the tuition, pay at least the per family tithing amount, work in the work groups, serve the cookies, be the room mom,
be in the Bible Studies, take a shift in consistory if so lucky, a church HOME. In other churches it is much the same, come in, join us, become one of us, work together with us.

I have had a lot of changing churches in the past three decades.

You CAN find a new church home THAT ISN'T THE PERFECT CHURCH (because there isn't one)
You CAN find a new church home WHERE YOU DON'T GET INVOVLED IN ANY ACTIVITY (just come to worship: learn, love, live...)
Any minister worth his weight in salt will tell you: to attend the worship service is enough.

Don't struggle to find a new church home because you can't jump in all the way like it was required in the PRCA
Take your time, visit a long time, maybe visit the minister,

You don't have to jump into bed to belong to a church
You can just sit on the front porch, in the soft easy rocking chairs, sipping sweet tea, singing, and listening, loving, living.