Pew Check
You send me a church. I tell you what I see. A personal, expert review of any church — before you walk through the door.
Most church websites are written in code — and I don't mean HTML. I mean the careful, focus-grouped language that lets a church sound welcoming while burying its actual positions on leadership, sexuality, politics, and power.
After a decade in pastoral ministry and years of writing about spiritual abuse and church culture, I can read between those lines.
This is for you if you're trying to find a church after leaving one that hurt you. If you're moving to a new city and don't want to walk into something familiar in the worst way. If you've got a friend or family member visiting a church that worries you. If you just want someone who knows what to look for to take a careful look before you invest your Sunday mornings and your trust.
What I Look For
Every review checks for red, yellow, and green flags across these categories:
Theology & Inclusion
Is this church affirming of LGBTQ+ people? Not "welcoming" in scare quotes. Actually affirming.
Leadership Structure
Does this church affirm women in all levels of leadership, or is there a glass pulpit?
Authority & Accountability
Who holds power, and who holds them accountable? Single-pastor rule, elder boards with no oversight, and "apostolic covering" language are all flags.
Race, Culture & Ethnicity
Does this church engage honestly with racial justice, or does it treat "diversity" as a photo op? Anti-DEI rhetoric, colorblindness theology, and an all-white leadership team in a diverse community all get flagged.
Political Entanglement
Is the cross draped in a flag here? Christian nationalism, partisan signaling, and culture-war theology get flagged.
Spiritual Abuse Patterns
Loyalty culture, shunning, purity culture, prosperity gospel, high-control group dynamics — the patterns that hurt people.
Transparency
What a church hides on its website is often more telling than what it shows.
Three Levels of Review
Every tier delivers a written report with red, yellow, and green flags and plain-language explanations.
Website Scan
A thorough review of the church's website, social media, and publicly available materials. Quick, clear, and enough to know whether to keep looking.
Deep Dive
Everything in the Website Scan, plus review of 2–3 recent sermons. This is where patterns emerge — what gets preached vs. what gets published can be very different.
Full Vetting
Everything in the Deep Dive, plus I contact the church directly on your behalf to ask the questions most people feel too awkward or anxious to ask.
All tiers are pay what you can. If you're broke and scared of walking into the wrong church, that matters more than a price tag.
A Few Things This Isn't
This isn't a seal of approval. A green-flag report means I didn't find anything concerning — not that a church is guaranteed to be healthy. Churches change, pastors leave, and no website review catches everything.
This also isn't for churches that want to hire me to audit themselves (though if that interests you, get in touch separately).
And this is personal. Every review is done by me — not AI, not an intern, not a checklist. I read everything myself because context matters and red flags are often subtle.
Free Resources
If you want to do your own research first, these are solid starting points:
- Church Clarity Database of churches scored on transparency around policy positions
- Post-Evangelical Collective Find a church through the post-evangelical community
- GayChurch.org Directory of LGBTQ+ affirming churches
- Q Christian 3 ways to find your nearest affirming church
These databases are great — but they only cover churches that have opted in or been submitted. Pew Check exists for the churches that aren't in any database yet, the ones where you have nothing to go on but a website and a gut feeling.
Start Your Pew Check
Turnaround: 2 business days from submission.
Reports delivered within 2 business days