That was question someone recently asked me when I was talking about the need to see more healthy churches planted around Australia to reach more people.

Not surprisingly, attending church is actually good for you!

I say this not just as a personal testimony or by telling anecdotal stories (which I could) but as a result of research and evidence that demonstrates that being part of a church community and regularly attending church is good for you!

That’s another reason why we need more healthy churches across our Nation that will reach more people.

Here are some of the conclusions that research points towards some of the positive benefits of going to church.

The Undeceptions article: “Going to Church Is Often Good For Your Mental Health” draws some fascinating conclusions, including:

The ‘Oxford Handbook of Religion and Health’ provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of all published studies on the association between religious involvement and medical and mental health. Its findings are both astonishing and challenging. Some key takeaways include;

• 78% of more than 300 studies report a positive association between religiosity and well-being.
• 73% of 40 studies report a positive association between religiosity and hope.
• 81% of 32 studies report a positive association between religiosity and optimism.
• 93% of 45 studies report a positive association between religiosity and one sense of purpose and meaning.
• 82% of 74 studies report a positive association between religiosity and one’s sense of social support.
• 61% of 413 studies report lower rates of depression or faster recovery from depression in religious individuals.
• 75% of 141 studies report that religiosity is associated with less suicidal ideation, fewer suicide attempts, or fewer completed suicides.

Lifeway Research in the USA wrote that:

Tyler VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, notes that public health advice and textbooks for would-be doctors often ignore the benefits of religious attendance. “The standard narrative for the neglect sometimes seems to be that ‘there is not actually that much research around the impact of spirituality on health.’ This, however, is simply not the case”, he writes.

…“Looking at the data we have on religious participation and health, it seems reasonable to encourage those who already identify with a religious tradition to participate in communal religious life”, wrote VanderWeele. Health officials ignoring this data means they “are neglecting an important health resource, and will be leaving the population in poorer health.”

The epidemiology professor argued, “It is time for the neglect of religion in public health conversations to change”.

The secret is out. Being part of a church community and regularly attending church is good for a person on so many levels, not only does it frequently positively impact a person’s spiritual, emotional, and mental health but also their physical health.

The National Library of Medicine in the USA has written that compared with those who never attended religious services, individuals who attended services at least once per week had :

• a lower risk of all-cause mortality by 26%
• heavy drinking by 34%
• current smoking by 29%

They also reported that:

“Service attendance was also inversely associated with a number of psychological-distress outcomes (i.e. depression, anxiety, hopelessness, loneliness) and was positively associated with psychosocial well-being outcomes (i.e. positive affect, life satisfaction, social integration, purpose in life), but was generally not associated with subsequent disease, such as hypertension, stroke, and heart disease.”

The evidence is clear. Going to church is good for you. And if we are to love our neighbours across our Nation, we need to see planted more health churches of all kinds for all types of people in all kinds of locations.

Tim O’Neill

Executive Director,

Exponential Australia