How do I find a nice church?

[Beenleigh]

I'd really like to start to go to church again. I've largely avoided any contact with religion for the last couple of decades, but am starting to feel like the time is right to start to go, probably only occasionally though.
I would like to go to a C of E church that isn't too full on, avoiding fundamentalist religion and literal interpretations of the bible.
What do you reckon?
I'm in North London btw

I think the only way to find a church you are going to be happy in is to try some until you find one you like. Get the phone book and look them up and just try them one by one.

Also why don't you come and join us on the prayer thread, maybe some people on there who know the area.

Brill that you are feeling like going back to church.

Why do you want to go? From a theological standpoint you should go to your parish church as part of the experience is being with a mixture of people who have different points of view/incomes/ideas/ages/philosophies.Shopping around for a church can turn make you critical of superfical things such as crappy music, beards etc and not focus on more spirtual/theological things. If you want to go for the social side or to listen to a decent sermon every so often and your parish church doesn't 'suit' you then you might have to just go to quite a few and see if you can find one that you're happy with.

Hi BL

I'd echo what Notsofarnow says. It can be fun to visit a number of Churches in your area, say hello, and find out which one you feel at home in.

It is good, as PP says, to be able to be fully involved in your local community, but when you have little ones, not every church has facilities for children, for example.

One of the great things about being C of E, IME, is that you may find a few Churches locally and be able to pick the service which fits in with your family's routine and sleep times! We have attended two local churches regularly in order to keep going.

You may be able to visit a few via the toddler and baby groups and meet people who go there that way.

You can also pray about it!

To save you doing too much pavement-pounding, you could start with this website
and then check the excellent Mystery Worshipper bit of the Ship of Fools website to see if they've done a review of any of your local churches.
Has to be said though that web presence doesn't necessarily indicate whether a parish is welcoming to families.
Good luck with your search.

Quite a lot of churches have websites these days, as ours does, so you can see what they offer without turning up to them all on a Sunday. You can see if they have a creche, sunday school, toddler groups etc and also quite often there is a bit about the ethos of the church. You could probably narrow down a shortlist that way.

Is there anybody you know from other parts of your life who goes to church that you could ask?

There are a lot of Alpha courses starting at the moment, with it being the beginning of term. Perhaps find one and meet some people that way.

Good luck

As someone has mentioned Ship of Fools (SOF), you could try posting on there - I can guarantee someone on there would be able to help you find a church!

Marina, are you on SOF?

Or there's our Vicar's old stomping ground - St Paul's, Winchmore Hill, that always sounded a decent place... I can speak to him if you like...

I am Mary BS but not as a regular poster
It's a great website! My dh was recently press-ganged into becoming Churchwarden so I glean lots of useful stuff there, and love the idea and execution of Mystery Worshipper

I've recently become addicted, and find it a wonderful place to ask questions. I'd like the mystery worshipping a lot better if there wasn't that slight element of fear that one day our church would be MW'd on the day I was preaching!