Will Going to Church Help You Flourish?

Scripture — Hebrews 10:24-25 (NRSV)

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Devotion

In yesterday’s Life for Leaders devotion, I referred to a study conducted by scholars at Baylor University and Harvard University. The Global Flourishing Study surveyed over 200,000 participants in 22 diverse countries. It sought to “expand our knowledge of the distribution and determinants of flourishing around the world.” To put this in common language, the study intended to understand what flourishing looks like around the world and to discover what leads to flourishing.

Yesterday, I noted that The Global Flourishing Study found that wealthier nations were not necessarily flourishing more than less wealthy nations. That was one surprise finding from the study. Another unexpected finding had to do with attendance at religious services. The “Initial Results” article reports:

[I]n both the demographic analyses and in the childhood predictor analyses, religious service attendance was one of the factors most consistently associated with present or subsequent well-being, across countries and across outcomes (p. 646).

Tyler VanderWeele, one of the study’s principal researchers and a professor of public health at Harvard, explained further in an interview:

So I think the evidence is clear now that religious participation is a powerful social determinant of health. Our studies and those of many others, using the best data and rigorous methods and controlling for a host of other factors, have indicated that. Weekly religious service attendance is associated with about a 30 percent decline in all-cause mortality, about a 30 percent decline in incidents of depression, a fivefold reduction in suicide, and 30 to 50 percent reductions in the likelihood of divorce. And, over time, increased happiness, increased meaning, increased volunteering, big effects on important outcomes. And so, I think we need to take religion seriously as an important health resource. And if we neglect doing so, I think we are blind to the forces that shape us in public health.

VanderWeele and his colleagues are looking at the big picture of what kinds of practices make a significant social difference. The writers are alluding to the fact that the impact of religion has been strangely absent from the study of public health. The big picture influences of religious participation are also relevant to individuals. If we regularly attend religious services, then we are likely to flourish, both in the negative things we avoid and in the positive things we experience.

If it’s good news that church attendance contributes to our flourishing, the bad news is that fewer of us are participating in weekly worship than in the past. According to Gallup, 20 years ago, 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week. Now that percentage is down to 30%. There are many reasons for this drop in attendance. Gallup points to the fact that more Americans than ever before claim no religious affiliation. 9% of Americans were “Nones” in 2000-2003. Now, two decades later, 21% of Americans identify as “Nones.”

Many churches have experienced a post-COVID decline in weekly attendance. No doubt some of this has to do with the availability of online worship experiences. I could “join” my church for worship every week without leaving the comfort of my den at home. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this, because, on the one hand, it’s great for shut-ins, travelers, and others who cannot make it to weekly worship in person. On the other hand, I believe that the benefits of worship participation go beyond “watching the show.” Actually being with people, greeting one another, singing together, praying in unison . . . all of these things contribute to the vitality of the worship experience.

It’s important to realize that missing church isn’t a new phenomenon. Almost two millennia ago, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews said, “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb 10:24-25). Notice that one crucial element of meeting together is provoking and encouraging each other to love and good deeds. This kind of mutual support and exhortation doesn’t happen when I’m sitting at home watching church on a screen.

So, Scripture urges us to gather on a regular basis with our sisters and brothers in Christ. This would be a sufficient reason to do it. But the findings from The Global Flourishing Study show just how beneficial it can be for us to show up each week for church. When we do, it’s not only that we receive things that help us to flourish. We can give to others that which helps them to flourish as well.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Realizing the Faith (Hebrews 10:19–11:40).