The Search Churches application was designed for those Christians who are not very familiar with Google Maps and precisely to search Google Maps for all churches, cathedrals or shrines around the current location of the smartphone on which it is installed.
For example you are in Rome and you want to go to Mass or to pray in a Church the application will find all the nearest churches sorted by Distance, then using the Google Maps functions called by the application you can then ask for directions and launch the browser that you will take you either by car or on foot to the desired Church.
The search field can however be modified so if instead of the Churches you want to find all the restaurants closest to you just put 'restaurants' in the search field.
There are different Zoom levels that you can choose, if you choose Auto (recommended) Google Maps will decide the Zoom level; pinch zoom is always available in Google Maps so you can adjust the display as you like.