I said a few weeks ago that I have been a part of seven different churches in my life. What I didn’t say is that six of those churches have been in the past six years. But from the day I was born until the day I went off to college, I went to Bethany Bible Chapel in Cedar Falls, IA.

We in the youth group went our separate ways after graduating, but in the past year two of us have ended up in Des Moines, and we are once again at the same church. Christy and her husband Kyle started coming to Two Rivers a few months after Amanda and I, and as we introduce them to our friends, someone always asks how we know each other. Well, we’ve known each other our whole lives, I say; but each time I say it, it sinks in a little bit more how unusual this is.

Owing to our culture’s lifestyle of moving across the country every few years in pursuit of a job, as well as our intrinsic divisiveness, it’s rare for someone to remain at the same church through his childhood and adolescence. But my experience at Bethany was by no means unique. Our family photo album contains pictures of me as a baby playing with other babies (including Christy) with whom I would graduate eighteen years later; all in all, there were maybe five of us within a year of each other who were together from the nursery to the last day of high school youth group.

Christy and I have reminisced about our upbringings, and one of the many things we share in common is that we know the Bible better than just about anyone we’ve met outside of Bethany. We had the benefit of a phenomenal Sunday school program that covered just about every story in the book, and we were both involved in something called Bible Quiz which is essentially competitive Bible memorization. Add to this our Bible-centered summer camp and Wednesday night kids’ club, and you understand.

But Bible knowledge is only one aspect of our rich experience growing up at Bethany Bible Chapel. The picture I mean to paint is that Bethany provided a solid church environment for raising a family. In my generation, there are dozens more who attended Bethany for as long as Christy and I did because their parents understood this. And though life has led most of us away from that particular gathering of Christians, many have gone on to work for the Kingdom in such diverse roles as church planters, Bible college professors, and full-time youth camp staff—as well as nurses, software developers and waitresses, whose work is equally valuable to the Kingdom if it is done in the name of Christ.

Next to God and good parents, it was the dedication of the Sunday school teachers and the camp counselors and the Bible Quiz coaches and the youth leaders that made us who we are.

In the fall of 2006, Amanda and I decided to move down to the Charlotte area for the semester so she could finish her degree. She only needed six gen-ed classes to graduate, and community college in North Carolina costs about a tenth of what it costs in Iowa. Since we were both still working part-time jobs and were not leashed to any particular location, we thought it would make the best financial sense. It would also be a great opportunity for me to get to know her family. So in August we loaded up our cars and made the 20-hour road trip. I moved into her parents’ basement and got two jobs while she took her classes and worked evenings.

During the four months we were down there, we went to Amanda’s home church, Fairbluff Bible Chapel, a church of about 100 members. Interestingly, though Fairbluff is located in the middle of Charlotte, most of the families who attend do not live in Charlotte proper, with some of them driving up to an hour to meet on Sunday.

Charlotte has a considerable Hispanic and Latin American population. A few years ago, some immigrants from Honduras and Colombia started attending Fairbluff because it was the only Plymouth Brethren church in the area and that was the type of church they went to back home. But they barely knew any English. One of the members at Fairbluff was fluent in Spanish from his years as a missionary, so he offered to translate the sermons as they were preached.

Then more Spanish-speakers started coming. Within a year or two, the Spanish-speaking group at Fairbluff had grown to about ten, including a few who had been church leaders in their home country. The elders at Fairbluff suggested that these people start a Spanish-language service and graciously offered the church gym as a meeting place. Now there are 20 or 30 of them and their ministry is flourishing.

But the Spanish-speakers did not split off and form their own autonomous church. That’s the best part. They remained a part of Fairbluff, and everyone still meets together on Sunday mornings. I should explain here that Plymouth Brethren have an open-format meeting where anyone is free to pray, share a thought, or suggest a hymn as they feel led by the Holy Spirit to worship. And at Fairbluff, a song or devotional thought in English may be followed by a prayer or Bible reading in Spanish, though almost no one understands the other language and there is not a translator. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that a group of Christians are gathered to worship in the name of Jesus Christ, and worship transcends language barriers.

Fairbluff stands as a shining example of adaptation. They saw an opportunity from God, and they took that opportunity even though it meant changing the way they’ve been doing things for many years. And it was not without its cost: in the past six or seven years, Fairbluff’s English-speaking attendance has seen a decline in numbers. But the Spanish language ministry continues to grow! They are able to meet the needs of a demographic that Fairbluff had always been surrounded by, but until recently had been unable to reach. The city of Charlotte is ripe for the harvest.

I’ve been part of seven different churches in my life. These experiences have shown me that a church is very much like a person in a few different ways: no two are alike, they all have their faults, and most importantly, they all excel at something. In the coming weeks I’ll draw a profile of five of them and characterize something they did that left a lasting impression on me.

I want to point out in advance that my purpose in this is not to say that all churches should do all of these things, or that if an aspiring church planter were to combine all of the “good parts” he’d end up with the optimal church. No, that church would have more faults than any of these! Rather, the optimal church strives to be only what God has called them to be, resisting the lures of comparison and conformity to other churches. The optimal church meets the unique needs of their congregation and their community, and this will look different for every local gathering.

So as I profile these churches, understand that it’s not a prescription for success, only a celebration of excellence.