Why is there so Little Understanding of "Church Attendance"



Many times a month there are posts on the web about the "benefits to society of church attendance." One can learn that the church has been a place where people of different political views became friends. You can learn that those who attend church live longer and divorce less. There are entire books devoted to why society and democracy are better off if most people attend church. 

I suspect every one of these articles and books was written by a person who attends church. They enjoy church and cannot imagine someone sitting in church and being miserable. If these authors/speakers could understand that church is voluntary and people normally do not do something voluntarily that makes them miserable they would understand why pointing out the societal benefits of church is pointless. 

I pointed out in the discussion following the link above that going to church is for some like going to a restaurant and ordering a dish you dislike. People just don't do that. Then there is the church we can compare to the restaurant management. Why would a restaurant put on its menu a list of dishes most people will not like?

The simple fact is people don't go to church, at least in part, because they do not enjoy it. I agree people are busy and children have events on Sunday which compete for their time. But people are not going to carve out time for church if they do not enjoy it. That is central.

What can churches do to make church less dreary. Certainly, they have tried. Churches have bands and preachers who are good speakers. The tenets of the faith, however, remain the same. If people do not enjoy stories about walking on water and dead people coming back to life there bands and flashy preachers will not reverse the downward trend. 

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