Written by Jared Kennedy, managing editor, books and curriculum, at The Gospel Coalition
I’m part of a local church near a university campus, so we have a significant number of college students attending. Every year around this time, I’m having conversations with recent graduates who have either taken a job in another state or are planning to attend graduate school in a faraway city. I’m often asked, “Do you know of any good churches there?” Sometimes I know of congregations that are part of the denomination or church-planting network my church is affiliated with, but other times I’m not familiar with the area where this young Christian is moving. When that’s the case, my next question is “Have you looked at the TGC Church Directory?”
For most of our history, TGC maintained an online directory of evangelical churches that align with our confessional statement and theological vision for ministry. This directory was conceived as a practical way to help individuals find trustworthy churches that had chosen to associate with TGC and its values. Instead of relying on Yelp, Google, or ChatGPT for local church recommendations, believers struggling to find a good church after a move, or for any other reason, could geo-search for solid congregations through the TGC directory. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of users accessed the directory, one of the most-visited pages on TGC’s website.
Over time, the directory grew to more than 10,000 listed churches that had self-reported their alignment with TGC. But this growth led to decreasing confidence in the directory’s reliability. So this year, in an effort to improve its trustworthiness for TGC-affiliated users, we embarked on a comprehensive update. We’ve contacted all churches in the directory and asked them to reapply, a process that has involved more pointed questions about alignment with TGC and a more hands-on approval system. Going forward, we’ll also seek periodic updates from each church in the directory to keep the information current.
TGC also now limits listings on our site’s job board to churches that participate in the directory. To offset the administrative costs of a more updated, accurate directory and a trustworthy job board, all participating churches will now pay an annual administrative fee of $100. We believe this small fee is a reasonable investment for a service that provides critical tools and high-value visibility for subscribing churches.
If you believe your church aligns with TGC’s beliefs and values, and you’d like others to know of that alignment, we encourage you to submit your application today so your church can be listed.
—Jared
