Articles
Churchgoers Live Longer
Churchgoers Live Longer
By David Briggs
Live longer. Go to church more often. A major study of church attendance and mortality reveals people who attend church more than once a week are likely to live an average of seven years longer than people who never attend worship services.
"Something's going on here," said Robert A. Hummer of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
The findings by sociologists Hummer and Christopher G Ellison of the University of Texas, Richard G. Rogers of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Charles B. Nam of Florida State University were presented recently at the joint meeting of the Religious Research Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Several previous studies have uncovered a positive link between religion and physical and mental health. However, there has been little research on the national level into the relation between religious experience and mortality.
In the new study, partly funded by the National Science Foundation, researchers began with a nationally representative sample of 22,080 people interviewed in their homes in 1987 as part of a cancer risk factor survey conducted by the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The study data are based on 2,016 people from the federal survey who were identified as dying from 1987 to 1995 by matching respondents with the National Death Index.
Researchers found the life expectancy at age 20 for people who never attend church was 55.3 years, compared to 61.9 years for people who attend services once a week and 62.9 for people who attend more than once a week.
"Our life expectancy estimates... indicate that religious attendance differences in mortality are similar in magnitude to those of sex and race," researchers said.
Researchers say some of the gap may be explained by the health benefits of churches discouraging unhealthy behaviors such as smoking (and promiscuity, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, etc. -- prb).
And the social ties promoted by church attendance contribute to a network of people that help monitor the health of members.
One area they suggest for further study is to see whether worship attendance decreases stress and helps church members cope with illness. Kenneth Pargament, a sociologist at Bowling Green State University, who studies the relation between religion and health, praised the new study. "This kind of data underscores the power of religion, not only for their psychological well-being, but their physical well-being," he said.
In Northeast Ohio, the study results resonated with the experience of church workers seeking to strengthen the connection between the religious and medical communities.
"It is a biblical principle that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit," said... Mark Olds, director of the Olivet Health and Education Institute. "That leads to promoting healthy care of the body." (Edited, Akron Plain Dealer, 12/5/98, 1-4f)
On the Couch or With the Church?
As church attendance numbers fade across the nation and online services become very convenient (who doesn't love not getting ready in the morning or leaving home?!), it's important to remember why church attendance for you and your family matters so much.
You can't serve from your couch. You can't have community of faith on your couch. You can't experience the power of a room full of believers worshiping together on your couch.
Christians aren't consumers either. We are contributors. We don't watch. We engage. We give. We sacrifice. We encourage. We do life together.
The church needs you
And you need the church.
While we are grateful for technology to keep people connected that can't physically come to a facility or need to be away, it's absolutely not like being in the building. Never will be.
Yes, church on the couch is nice. But it'll never be the same as church face to face. Will we see you Sunday morning? (The Hartselle church of Christ Bulletin)
A Moments Wisdom on Work
--Happiness depends chiefly on our cheerful acceptance of routine, on our refusal to assume, as many do, that daily work and daily duty are a kind of slavery.
--Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
--To find one's work is to find one's place in the world.
--It is better to undertake a large task and get it half done than to undertake nothing and get it all done.
--It is not doing the thing which we like to do, but liking to do the thing which we have to do, that makes life blessed.
--The greatest composer does not sit down to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.
--The only place where success comes before work is in a dictionary.
--There are two changeless sources of solid happiness: first, the belief in God, and second, the habit of hard work toward useful ends.
--If you want to be not only successful, but personally, happily and permanently successful, then do your job in a way that puts lights in people's faces. Do that job in such a way that, even when you are out of sight, folks will always know which way you went by the lamps left behind.
Test Your Bible Knowledge
1. Challenging question: How many Psalms did David write? __________
2. Name four other writers of Psalms. __________ __________ __________ __________
3. Which Psalm is the shortest? __________
4. Which Psalm is the longest? __________
5. Which Psalm is considered the favorite of most people? __________
6. What is the theme of the 119th Psalm? __________
Upcoming Sermons
5/2/21 AM - Must I be a Member of a Local Church?; PM - Singing Service: Congregational Choice
5/9/21 AM - Where Does God Stand?; PM - Grieving in Heaven
5/16/21 AM - Scott Black; PM - “Solomon” - Doug Sanders
5/23/21 AM - “Come Let Us Reason Together”: The Logic of Scripture; PM - Mary: “Blessed Among Women”
5/30/21 AM - “Aaron Shall be Gathered to His People”; PM - “The Broken Wall” - Doug Sanders
