How far are you willing to drive to your denomination of choice?

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I’m not sure if this has ever been a thread before, but I was thinking a lot about this lately…how far would most of us drive to the church of our choice? For example, if you are Anglican, how far are you willing to drive to get to an Anglican parish from your home? Or Lutheran? Or Orthodox? Or Catholic? etc…
 
I drive past lots of Methodist churches to get to ours…its about 15 minutes. But IF I were particularly picky about the denomination…I would say 30 minutes WITH kids is reasonable because you will make the trips multiple times during the week for youth activities and so forth
 
Well on occasion I’ll drive an hour and a half to get to a Traditional Latin Mass. It’s also made me wonder what Protestants will do.
 
Not far. Luckily I have lived within a driving distance of a Friends Meeting within a 1/2 hour most of my Quaker life. Those times that I haven’t I attended the local Methodist church or United Church of Christ…during those few times I even attended an Episcopal and Presbyterian church…I was able to contact the nearest Monthly Meeting and set up a bi-monthly “worship group” where the few Quakers and “Quaker friendly” individuals wanted to experience un-programmed worship and or Bible study in one of our homes on a designated First Day.

It was during this time I became involved in the “Wider Quaker Fellowship” and was able to get some Methodists involved in exploring Quaker testimonies and witness through this group while keeping their Methodist affilliation.
 
I will only attend LCMS services, so especially on the East Coast, it can be difficult to find a church. Luckily my home congregation is only 10 minutes away, but I have driven an hour or more (usually past multiple other Lutheran churches) to get to an LCMS service. This is largely because I can only commune in the LCMS.
 
My wife and I actually looked for the parish of our choice and then did our house hunting around it 🙂 We have a non-Catholic Christian Church almost next door to us but gladly drive the 15 minutes to our parish Church for Mass. (where our children attend school)

The non-Christains next door are a nice group of people and our family often attends their fund raising events. But I’ve declined their invitations to “come check out” their service and bible studies since their web-site says they are Sola Scriptura, “symbolic” Lord’s supper folks and that’s just not what Scripture teaches. But they’re nice people and good neighbors…

Thanks for asking! Interesting question!

Edit : I travel for business often and usually can find a Catholic Church near most of my hotels, but have driven about an hour on occasion (and once walked fruitlessly through a suburb of London looking for one). In China it was particularily difficult and I’ve walked (I don’t like driving outside US) for several miles when need be.
 
It is a (thankfully) theoretical question for me, but I have occasionally pondered it.

I was once acquainted with a family who drove 2 hours (4 hours round trip) without fail every Sunday to attend a schismatic service. I figure if they could go to that length (heh) I could do at least as much, if I had to.

:twocents:
tee
 
I drive 17 miles. It’s not bad on Sunday mornings. But when there are weekday services, it can take 60-80 minutes due to really bad traffic flow in that area. I know Orthodox who drive more than 2 hours to worship in my city, so I really can’t complain. But it still takes some planning and effort to be parked, seated, and ready to worship on time. Traditional Anglicans don’t have many options here in the South though. I’d say 90 minutes is my maximum driving time. Anything longer than that would make it tough for me to attend worship somewhere on a regular basis.
 
Interesting thread Gurney. Well I have 5 Catholic parishes within 10 mi of me so not far. The one around the corner from me is big on speaking-liturgy which I like with no Latin. And the priests and parishoners fellowship in the pews before Mass which I like. But recently the priest has been preaching too conservatively to suit me in regard to the poor and instead favors marble altars, new flooring, robes for the EMHCs, and accepts only a higher donation for Mass offerings compared to some others. So I recently have been turned off by it.

I usually go to the 4th closest only because one Mass there has more contemporary music and it’s rather a plain church for Catholic. And has chairs without kneelers so most do not kneel. Even then it’s no more than 15 min depending on traffic. But they do sneak in Latin once in awhile and have “quiet signs” both of which are a turn off to me. There is one I just recently discovered which has a weekly Lifeteen Mass and another with a monthly teen Mass. I’m no teen and have never been to a teen Mass but I like a more contemporary Mass and understand both are attended by all ages so I might check out one of them or both. The actual Lifeteen one however is the furthest of the 5 so I might not.

If I weren’t Catholic, the TEC has 2 churches within 20 or 25 min drives. There is this one particular Disciples of Christ church in my area which as I understand has a pastor who strongly preaches the poverty and peace issues Jesus did. But it’s 45 mns away and that’s a bit far for me.

So in a nutshell I prefer within 15 min or so. Maybe I’d do 30 or less. But I also figure maybe God doesn’t want me wastng too much gas anyway.
 
One hour one-way to a mission church, 1.5 to a parish church. Probably each two times/month because of our current situation, but usually we make it to the parish church.

(We live in the country. In the Bible Belt.)
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
I’m not sure if this has ever been a thread before, but I was thinking a lot about this lately…how far would most of us drive to the church of our choice? For example, if you are Anglican, how far are you willing to drive to get to an Anglican parish from your home? Or Lutheran? Or Orthodox? Or Catholic? etc…
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I think the farthest I’ve driven is about 45 minutes. I could easily do an hour. Part of the problem with having to drive a long distance to go to church is not the time it takes to get there, but the loss of a community of faith that can happen by being out of the way. Church on Sunday is great, but ideally it should be more than that. Community gatherings, bible studies, charity, etc. It can be hard to be part of the church if you have to drive an hour to get to those things.
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
I’m not sure if this has ever been a thread before, but I was thinking a lot about this lately…how far would most of us drive to the church of our choice? For example, if you are Anglican, how far are you willing to drive to get to an Anglican parish from your home? Or Lutheran? Or Orthodox? Or Catholic? etc…
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Surely the idea of what is “a long drive” will vary according to the area. 35 miles is not too far to go for dinner here, so I would certainly drive that far to get to Mass. That said, if I had to drive that far every week, I would just as soon move closer to the parish. And there’s no way I’d move to an area with no Catholic church.
 
TriuneUnity said:
I think the farthest I’ve driven is about 45 minutes. I could easily do an hour. Part of the problem with having to drive a long distance to go to church is not the time it takes to get there, but the loss of a community of faith that can happen by being out of the way. Church on Sunday is great, but ideally it should be more than that. Community gatherings, bible studies, charity, etc. It can be hard to be part of the church if you have to drive an hour to get to those things.
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I agree
 
Luckily, here in the US there are tons of RC Churches. Specifically where I live I’m blessed to have a handful of RC Churches within 20 minutes of me and dozens within 1 hour drive. I am really blessed to have my parish only a 2 minute drive from my house.

If for some reason I was in the situation where I’d have to make a long drive to get to Mass, I’d drive probably up to 4-6 hours one-way. Now, I might have to put my money where my mouth is in August when I’ll be in Costa Rica for my honeymoon…unless we go to a Spanish-speaking Mass (which is probably what we’ll do).
 
BusterMartin said:
Luckily, here in the US there are tons of RC Churches. Specifically where I live I’m blessed to have a handful of RC Churches within 20 minutes of me and dozens within 1 hour drive. I am really blessed to have my parish only a 2 minute drive from my house.

If for some reason I was in the situation where I’d have to make a long drive to get to Mass, I’d drive probably up to 4-6 hours one-way. Now, I might have to put my money where my mouth is in August when I’ll be in Costa Rica for my honeymoon…unless we go to a Spanish-speaking Mass (which is probably what we’ll do).
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Buster, blessings on your upcoming Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Enjoy Costa Rica.
 
IF I were Catholic, I would do the same thing I am doing now. Driving past the suburbs and new churches to the heart of downtown where at least in my city the needy are and the community is really in tough shape. I love the big beautiful building and the downtown area. I would go to the Catholic Church downtown. It feeds the hungry every day and I think it seems like a nice place.
But I have no intention of switching but just wanted to add that.
 
When I first started going to my present church I would walk an hour to get to it (no car, etc.) so I imagine I’d have little trouble driving that distance if need be. It restricts where I can live a little (I want to move to a certain town but it is well over an hour to the nearest church), but generally I can reach a church.
 
Its not a matter of denomination, most major denominations except for the Assemblies of God, which historically has been divorced from the African American community, are within walking distance of my home. My home church was a 15 minute drive away, when I moved it became 25 miles, up to two hours during weekday rush hour but they are my family so I stayed.

One difference is that we are not assigned a parrish, as a Foursquare church member it is not expected that therefore I am a member of the Foursquare Church of X community. There is also no obligatory attendance at a Foursquare Church service, be married by a Foursquare pastor etc.
 
BrianH said:
IF I were Catholic, I would do the same thing I am doing now. Driving past the suburbs and new churches to the heart of downtown where at least in my city the needy are and the community is really in tough shape. I love the big beautiful building and the downtown area. I would go to the Catholic Church downtown. It feeds the hungry every day and I think it seems like a nice place.
But I have no intention of switching but just wanted to add that.
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👍
 
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