Faith and Values: Finding the right church for our family comes with challenges

When you cover religion for a living, Sunday mornings can lose their sacred quality. Church becomes your office, and after years of taking notes in pews across the region, the idea of attending services for personal worship can feel about as appealing as working overtime.

But my wife and I are expecting a son this month, and suddenly church shopping has become urgent business.

I haven’t attended services regularly in years. My spiritual practice is rooted in Buddhism – I took Bodhisattva vows long ago, and those teachings shape my daily values more than anything else. But there aren’t many toddlers at the local sangha, and that’s precisely why we’re looking for a faith community now.

Our motivations are practical and idealistic in equal measure. Religion can be damaging – my own childhood taught me that – but it can also provide a framework for ethics and values: love, kindness, honesty, moral courage. In a world where many people can’t name basic religious figures or holidays, we want our child to have religious literacy. We want him to know the Bible and other sacred texts, to understand the beliefs that shape our neighbors’ lives.

Mostly, we want to find people who share our values.

So the shopping began. We’ve visited an Episcopal church, a United Church of Christ congregation, a Unitarian Universalist fellowship and an ELCA Lutheran church. We’re drawn to mainline Protestantism because of its emphasis on social justice. We’re looking for communities that welcome LGBTQ members, that respect all religious traditions, that see faith as a call to make the world more just.

My wife brings familiarity with Lutheranism to this search – Missouri Synod – which differs from the progressive ELCA tradition we’re exploring. I bring my reporter’s eye and my Buddhist sensibilities – and the conviction that these traditions can intermingle. One can practice both. Christianity and Buddhism aren’t mutually exclusive in my experience. They speak to different dimensions of life and offer complementary wisdom.

But here’s what we’re discovering: Finding a mainline church with robust youth attendance is harder than we expected. These congregations are aging out. The children’s Sunday school rooms that once buzzed with activity now sit mostly empty. The churches that align with our values often lack the very thing we’re seeking – a community of young families raising kids together.

It’s a painful irony. The congregations most open to interfaith households, most committed to progressive values, most willing to let people bring their whole selves to worship are often the ones struggling most to attract young families.

We haven’t found our place yet, but I think we’re close. The search continues, with our son’s arrival approaching fast. I find myself in an unfamiliar position – not as the journalist observing from the back pew, taking notes on someone else’s faith, but as the parent hoping to find a spiritual home for my family.

This reversal has given me new empathy for everyone who has ever walked through church doors searching for something they can’t quite name. Community. Meaning. A place to belong. A way to raise children with values in a complicated world.

I don’t know yet where we’ll land. But the search itself has become its own kind of spiritual practice – an exercise in hope, vulnerability and the belief that somewhere out there is a community waiting to welcome us, Buddhist vows and all.