Can you tell if a church is healthy using its website?

Absolutely! Or at least you can make a pretty good start and eliminate a lot of obviously unhealthy churches. And you can do it in under five minutes!

One of the big things we’ve noticed in our surveys of 40,000 primarily evangelical people for our work here at Bare Marriage is that unhealthy behaviors and beliefs tend to exist in pockets: In other words, there are some churches that teach more toxic messages about modesty and sex, and those churches will tend to have much higher rates of porn use and sexual assault and harassment than churches that treat women with respect.

Many of us have been really hurt in churches, but we’re so used to a particular type of church, and we’ve been told that only this denomination is healthy or only this approach to the Bible is real, that we have a hard time getting out of that bubble. But if that bubble hurt you, then finding a different church in that same bubble will likely hurt you too!

So how can you tell if a church respects women and fosters good relationship dynamics? How can you tell if a church treats women as equals and doesn’t subordinate them, or has a healthy approach to counseling, marriage, and parenting. Can you figure out if a church emphasizes hierarchy and listening to authority? Can you tell if a church points to Jesus?

Happily, you can tell this pretty quickly by looking at a church’s website! So let’s wak through the steps.

I’m concentrating here on how to tell if a church treats women well, but if there’s another concern you especially have, you can adapt these steps for your own purpose.

And I’ve got a pretty download of these steps that you can print out and use, or keep in your phone to refer to as you peruse websites as well!

A 12-point plan to evaluate a church’s website

I want to make this as easy and quick for you as possible. So here’s the algorithm that you should use, and the order you should look at a website.

AS SOON as you see a red flag, move on to the next church. If you get through the whole list and there aren’t any red flags, then and only then is it time to listen to sermons or podcasts, visit the church, or book a time to speak with the pastor. Don’t start with listening to sermons–that’s a huge investment of time, when you can often eliminate a church in five minutes of looking at its website.

You don’t have to continue with all the other steps, either, if you find a red flag. If a church is eliminated at step 2, that’s actually a good thing. It’s better to know beforehand that the church won’t work than to spend weeks attending the service and listening to sermons online only to learn that it really isn’t safe.

When we left a church in 2008 because it treated women badly, we went to a slightly better church, but one that was quite similar in terms of doctrine. It had more educated and open-minded people, but ultimately many of those people moved away, and a new pastor came, and we were back in the place we were in 2008. Except that we had now spent another nine years there, and had been wounded again.

In most communities, you can find healthy churches, even if they’re small. And often it takes just a few families to start going to a safe church for it to start to attract more families and suddenly have a kids’ program. But what we often do instead is choose the church with the good kids’ program or youth group, and ignore the other red flags, thinking the kids will be okay. Well, as we showed in our research for our book She Deserves Better, and in our recent peer reviewed article, girls who attend churches as teens that have purity culture messages are 79% more likely to be assaulted and harassed at that church, and the benefits of church disappear for them. So don’t go to a church that’s unhealthy just because of its kids’ program! Your kids deserve better.

Here’s what to look for instead:

1. Start with Vibes from Home Page/Welcome Page

Do they emphasize power and status, vs. community? Are they emphasizing God’s love, or God’s judgment? Remember that a church’s opening statement announces, “this is the big thing we want the world to know about us!” Even if what they say is technically true and theologically sound (and for most websites it is), is that really what they should be leading with? How does it make you feel?

This stage will rarely give you absolute green flag/red flag, but will set the stage for the rest.

2. Check the Staff/Leadership Page

Most churches have a “Who We Are” or “Leadership” or “Staff” pages under the About tab.

Three questions to ask:

Does the church reflect the racial diversity of the city/town it’s in?

If the church is in a primarily white town, then having a white staff is fine. But if it’s in a very diverse town, and the staff is all white, that could be a red flag that marginalized communities don’t feel welcome in this church.

Is the church leadership based on a family dynasty?

If the current pastor is the son of the founding pastor, that’s usually a red flag. Just because someone is the founding pastor’s child does not mean they are the most gifted to run the church. This is a sign that the family sees the church as existing to serve them, often rather than them existing to serve the church. This isn’t always a red flag, but it would certainly be a strong orange one.

Are women included appropriately in leadership?

*This one step alone will eliminate 95% of red flag churches.* 

Here’s the big tell! If it’s a large church, are the men listed as pastors but the women only listed as directors? That’s a sign that the church doesn’t value women. If the church helpfully lists its elders, are they all men? Check out this Leadership page, for instance, from the Church of the Highlands, a megachurch in Alabama. Note how the pastors, trustees, overseers, and campus pastors are all men.

If it is an all-male leadership in a large church, it is guaranteed they also teach complementarianism in marriage, which we found leads to worse marriages. And women attending a structurally sexist church lose the healthy benefits of faith as well.

HOWEVER–and this is a huge caveat–smaller churches that are egalitarian will often have male senior pastors and even male youth pastors and not be complementarian. When a church has a very small staff it is harder to judge its approach to women, and so you should continue with the following steps.

Now, I know this is hard for many of you, because many people are trying to find that unicorn–that church with an complementarian approach that is still healthy. Maybe you think all the churches in your area are complementarian, so you don’t think you have a choice (I used to think this too!). But churches that view women as under the authority of men will inevitably teach harmful things about marriage and harmful things to your teenagers, and will be more likely to cover up abuse. All the websites from unhealthy churches that readers sent to me last week could be eliminated through this step alone. 

3. Read the Statement of Beliefs

Does this church believe any of your “deal-breakers” in terms of justice and equality? You will never agree 100% with a church on everything. But you should have some things that you absolutely won’t bend on. See from their statement of beliefs if anything stands out to you. One tell that I’ve found: If they talk about the doctrine of “man” rather than people, that will tend to be a church which values women less.

4. Discover the Denomination

Is this church involved in any sexist or harmful denominations? Usually they will list their denomination on their “about me” or “statement of beliefs” page. If they don’t, you can also go to denominational websites and search for it. The SBC in the US, for example, has a church directory here.  Many churches that belong to some of the more questionable denominations, like the SBC, do try to hide their affiliation, so you may have to use such directories.

Denominations to be wary of include the SBC, the PCA, the IFB, or the FBC in Canada. There are many other problematic denominations, but these ones definitely have a complementarian approach, where women are more likely to be abused and abuse is more likely to be overlooked.

5. Check Affiliations

Is the church affiliated with problematic church planting organizations, like 9Marks, Acts 29, etc, that are heavily complementarian and authoritarian?

6. Evaluate the Pastor’s Training

Still can’t tell which way the church leans? Check where the pastor went to seminary (or if he went to seminary.) Often non-denominational churches or even megachurches will be headed by a person who has not had any training, and that is often a red flag (Matt Chandler, Josh Howerton, and Doug Wilson have no seminary training, for instance).

If the pastor went to a seminary that is heavily complementarian, or went to an unaccredited seminary, that is often a red flag of what approach the church will take.

7. Peruse their Ministry Pages

Are the men’s ministries and women’s ministries equivalent, or are men prioritized? Any talk of gender roles in the women’s ministry/marriage ministry? Are the men’s events catered, while the women’s aren’t? Do the women’s events provide childcare, while the men’s don’t, so the expectation is that women can care for kids during the men’s events, but men can’t care for kids during the women’s?

8. Do they have a Membership Covenant?

Spiritual abuse is common in churches that require membership covenants. These churches tend to be hierarchy based. The Village Church, for instance, used a membership covenant to ex-communicate a woman who refused to work on reconciling with her husband who was caught using child sexual abuse materials (they later relented when the case made national news headlines). John MacArthur’s church has used membership covenants to excommunicate women who divorce abusive husbands, even husbands who were sexually abusing their children.

Membership covenants give the church incredible power over the congregation, without accountability for church leadership. Here’s The Wartburg Watch explaining.

9. What is Their Approach to Counseling?

Safe counseling is always done by licensed counselors. Pastoral care should be limited to spiritual issues or bereavement or grief. Biblical counseling or “soul care” ministries often cross boundaries, and are red flags that the church doesn’t understand mental health or healthy relationship dynamics. Biblical counseling has been highly implicated in some of the worst toxic marriage advice.

10. Skim their Suggested Resource Lists

Not every church offers resource lists, but often larger churches will have resource lists on their ministry pages–such as suggested resources for marriage or parenting. Do the suggested ministries/books promote harmful views? Here, for instance, is one of Lakepointe Church’s resource page for family books, and note how they promote Martha Peace’s book The Excellent Wife, one of the most harmful, abuse-enabling books out there.

11. Glance at their Upcoming Events

If the website doesn’t offer info about ministries, check the upcoming events calendar for more details, since often ministries are listed there. Do the events support healthy growth, healing, and community involvement?

12. Read Random Documents!

Peruse employee handbooks, vision plans, annual meetings, or other documents to get a sense of how the church treats members. Some churches helpfully post their safety plans for kids, or other documents that give a sense of what the church prioritizes and how they operate.

If you’ve gotten this far without any red flags, that’s amazing!

So there’s one more bonus step:

13. Google the church

Enter the name of the church in the search bar, along with the words “scandal”, “abuse” or “former members” to see what pops up. It’s also helpful to do the same for the pastor’s name, and include the city in the Google search. One particular church’s website I was researching for the podcast tomorrow looked good–until I took this step. The church had scrubbed the name of the pastor from the website, and when I googled “abuse”, it was clear why!

What if you still have all green flags?

Now’s the time to listen to sermons online, visit the church, or book a time to talk with the pastor. A healthy church will wecome a newcomer asking tough questions, and explaining what they’re concerned about. But don’t bother listening to sermons or doing any of that until you’ve worked through these steps on their website.

When I originally decided to create this template, I asked on social media for churches to check out. So many people sent me the churches that hurt them, and in about 90-95% of cases I could have eliminated them by step 2. But I also found churches that looked really healthy!

There are healthy churches out there, but if you’ve grown up in unhealthy churches, they’re likely outside your normal bubble. They may use liturgy for their services. They may be more lowkey–or more high brow. They may not feel the same as what you’re used to. But if what you’re used to hurt you–perhaps it’s time for a change!

So don’t be afraid to check out a very different church, if it has all green flags. And hopefully we can all find healthy places to end up, so that the healthy churches grow, and the unhealthy ones shrink.

Download our template of this flowchart to keep on your phone for handy reference, or to print out to use!

What do you think? Anything you would add? How does your own church hold up if you work through these steps? Let’s talk in the comments!