Valerie Steimle is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“Mormon” woman). She has been writing as a family advocate for the past 20years. She is the mother of nine children living insouthern Alabama and is the author of four books and a weekly newspaper column, Thoughts from the Heart.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or Mormons) we focus a lot of our attention in church attendance. The more we attend church together as a family, the more we can learn important communication skills and ponder fundamental beliefs and doctrines. Church attendance helps families to be a better family.
For example, according to a U.S. News and World Report on September 9, 1996 called “Can Churches Save America,” “the divorce rate for regular churchgoers is 18 percent; for those who attend services less than once a year, 34 percent.”
Religious beliefs help keep a perspective in life which points us in the right direction and encourages and gives us hope through our trials. Some families consider going to church a waste of time as they cannot feel how it will help. But if you stop and think about it, there are great things church attendance can do for families.
Attending a church or synagogue service consistently with your family makes the difference between wonderful relationships and troubled times in family life; it’s n ot that everything will be perfect; it’s that a faith-based life adds a dimension and a power that enters a family in relation to the other. Belief in God empowers; revelation through prayer guides. Each certainly helps the cause of keeping the family together. From my own personal experience, I have seen how attending church regularly and abiding by its precepts can help pull families through difficult times.
It is amazing what attending church can do for people. There are countless stories of drug addicts, thieves and alcoholics who could not clean up their life until introduced into a program with God at the helm. They turn themselves around and become clean and sober, hard working citizens. By the same token attending church as a family reminds us of a higher force in our life and that we can pray for help. From that same article (“Can Churches Save America”) in U.S. News and World Report says, “Frequent churchgoers are about 50 percent less likely to report psychological problems and 71 percent less likely to be alcoholics.” As families, we need a consistent, stable source of emotional stability and consistent church attendance can provide this kind of security.
From our highest authority, we find one of the best reasons to attend church is from the Lord. From modern revelation in these latter days Joseph Smith, the first latter day prophet of the hurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called “the Mormon Church” by the media), wrote in Doctrine and Covenants section 59, verses 9-10 the Lord tells us how church attendance helps our families: “And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day; For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High.”
If we have faith in God and know He takes care of us, attending church once a week can help keep our families moving forward in the right direction.
Think about these reasons for attending Church and building your faith in Jesus Christ:
1. Going to church or synagogue service gives you one opportunity to be together as a family in a positive setting each week. Busy schedules and other obligations during the week keep us going in opposite directions from each other.
2. We hear positive messages for improving our life. It might be boring sometimes; it might be hard to sit still, but the messages we hear at a service each week provide a positive, spiritual direction.
3. Religion can help us keep our perspective. It’s easy to forget what’s important in life when we are making a lot of money or climbing the corporate ladder of opportunity or immersed in some project that takes up all our time. Attending a service once a week breaks your concentration from the rest of the world and allows you to contemplate on what’s really important in your life.
Yes, I would say church attendance definitely has a positive affect on families. So the next time it seems as if your life is out of control, you haven’t really visited with your spouse and children, or your children seem like they are always in trouble, set aside some time during the week to attend a church or synagogue service. It will help you keep your sanity and the positive affects on your family will surprise you.
Additional Resources:
Learn more about the benefits of church attendance at the official site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called by friends of other faiths the “Mormon Church”).
Attend a local meetinghouse.
Request a free copy of the Book of Mormon.
Valerie’s website: Strengthen Your Home.