Finding a New Place to Worship (or Otherwise Experience the Divine) in 5 Steps
By Claire Repsholdt
You might have come to divinity school for reasons that have nothing to do with a church or a mosque or a synagogue, but the occupation of “divinity student” is rare enough in our world today that you will likely have to field inquiries about your life of faith and worship no matter what question it is you came here to answer. And with those inquiries orbiting around you like bright little moons as you spin through your education, I feel safe suspecting that at some point, whether for reasons ethnographical or theological, you could find yourself tiptoeing into a seat in a local house of worship, hoping for some breed of answer.
As I approached my first year of divinity school, the project of worshipping at just the right place felt like a suddenly urgent obligation. In response, I spent my first two semesters on what I can only describe as a Goldilocks-and-the-three-bears kind of quest to find something among local Lutheran or Lutheran-adjacent churches that felt just right. What emerged was a collection of almost-right experiences, nothing perfect, and nothing horrible, and it is from these experiences that I share some considerations you might include as you move forward into this first year of discovery…
Decide what you are looking for. 
Try to start off with a conscious sense of the kinds of things you seek in a particular community. There is a reason religion and region share so many letters. The more time I spend in Divinity School as part of the small but mighty Lutheran Student Organization made up of students from around the country, the more I come to understand how much our faith is a product of where it was grown. All of minutia of costumes and customs that accumulate into a worship service are at their best when they are drawn from the life of their neighborhoods. Just as it is not possible to maintain the perfect San Francisco sourdough starter bacteria in Connecticut, it will never quite be possible to replicate suburban Indiana in urban Connecticut. When you think about what kinds of expectations you have, try to see which ones you might have to set to the side as you accept the new possibilities of this place, New Haven.
Find it.
You might begin by trying a local approach to your quest for a house of worship. One of the truly wonderful things about studying divinity in New Haven is that you can’t sneeze without being blessed by another interesting – and usually old! – churchy building. Start walking around 8:45 on Sunday morning and see what sanctuary doors entice you—then, depending on the posted start time, conduct a quick Google search to see what coffee stores might help you spend the time before or after service. A significant majority of services can be found in in the 9:30-11 range, though of course there is no rule.
If you’re looking for advice about what would suit you and your worship history, the most important resource you have to lead you to worship is the community around you, among whom you can find a surfeit of suggestions about where to worship just by asking around. As I hope our orientation days together will attest, Yale Divinity School is filled with people who are curious, helpful, and determined to encounter places where the divine is making an impact. Few places in the world collect such a diverse and committed group of holiness-seekers as this old quad, and as readers and writers all, they will be happy to share those stories of seeking with you. Still more, I do not hesitate to guarantee that around every corner there is either a) a student who would love you to accompany to a service of some kind of another or b) a student whose own service you could attend! If you can’t find any of these—well, find me! I would love to discover something with you.
For more right-brained types who prefer a database to found a new search, you might try examining the Supervised Ministry – or even employer! – portion of the DivLink student portalto see all of the different places that Yale Divinity School has sent students. That these groups have welcomed interns from our ranks before makes your first introduction as a YDS student an easy task.
Go.
Walking in the doors and finding a seat is by far the hardest part of coming to a new place of worship as a stranger—what if you take the pew that that one couple has sat in together ever since they were married in the church fifty years ago? What if you sit with the band? What if you stand next to someone really sick or really friendly? And yet, most regular churchgoers can attest that congregations are forever waiting to welcome a visitor into the thing they love. Take a breath, step inside, and see what happens. No matter what just by being there you become part of a community across the Eastern Standard Time Zone sitting down together for a moment, just to listen.
Stay longer than you think you have to.
The best kinds of worship experiences tend, in my experience, to be correlated with how willing I am to let go of my surrounding schedule to see where the spirit might move. Grab a coffee from the hospitality table. Stand and chat with the pastor. Stay still to pray. Going to service is just the way to invite that old spirit of Sabbath push you forward through the rest of your day (and week).
Reflect. 
Come home, transformed or not, and give yourself some more time to consider the experience you’ve just had. What found you? What did you miss?
As I said at the beginning, after a year of exploring worship in a bunch of different churches, I mostly found that nothing felt just right. Turns out, that’s probably because right now I’m directing most of my worship energy toward figuring out what it will take to stand up and lead a whole church, after having spent so many years in the audience. This year, as I continue my pathway into parish life with more umph, I am trying to figure out what sorts of worshipful experiences can buoy my leadership of worship. And I know one thing is for sure: In my case, leading a church is going to lead me to a LOT more yoga.
TL;DR: Here are a few Lutheran and Lutheran-adjacent places in and around New Haven I enjoyed worshipping this year that would all be worthy places to begin your own quest.
Bethesda Lutheran– Their regularly festive Sunday services explode into gorgeous amateur pageantry for Easter Vigil.
First Presbyterian– Trusty architecture means no matter the success of the day, it’s hard not to be transported to another mid-century storybook realm.
Emanuel Lutheran– Go to hang out with what may be the tiniest band of worshippers in town. Stay to admire the many aesthetic variations on portraits of Martin Luther.
St. Mary’s– Stay up late on Saturday night and then head to the 12 pm Latin Mass to get utterly lost in mortal time.
Trinity on the Green– Take a visiting friend to this historic masterpiece of a building for a marvelous mid-day service and take in a poetic sermon among the lunch hour public.
With that, I send you off into a year of exploration and discovery, eagerly awaiting all the while reports back on what you encounter.