What questions should someone ask themselves if they are thinking of joining a church?
You wish to profess religion — why? Is it your duty? What makes it such?
Are you a Christian, a disciple of Christ; what evidences satisfies you of it?
When you take your seal at the communion-table, should this be the case, will you feel that your religion is ended — or only just begun? that you need more knowledge, more experience, more usefulness?
For what, think you, is the visible church divinely organized and maintained in the world?
Are you cordially willing to be subject in the Lord to the oversight and discipline of his house?
Do you now desire to be useful in the cause of that blessed Redeemer in whom you have hope?
What is the basis, what the warrant, what the evidence of your hope? Is it of the right kind?
Do you realize that the act of profession is your own? the responsibility of it yours? that a professor is one thing, and a possessor another; always in idea, often in fact?
What is assurance? Is it yours? Ought it not to be?
Have you any hearty, and prayerful, and practical desire for the salvation of souls?
Are you willing in any known respect to deny yourself for Christ's sake?
Are you free to confess Christ wherever and whenever you ought? or are you ever ashamed of him?
Do you expect to renounce the world as your portion, when you avouch the Lord in public?
Is it your highest desire to be holy, and walk with God for ever?
Do you love Christians, all Christians, as Christians? and that, because they love God, and God loves them?
Did you ever solemnly ponder the question, supposing you are a true disciple of the Son of God, why did I ever become such, when others live and die not such?
“Who maketh me to differ from another, and what have I that I did not receive?”
How much do you at heart care for the love of Christ, the glory of God, and the progress of religion in the world? Are you willing to catechize [question] your life, habitually to its close, for an answer? source