According to Harvard University Professor Tyler VanderWeele’s study on church attendance, people who attend church more than once per week live longer. Previous studies have been criticized for their small sample sizes and the possibility of reverse causation (that is, people with a higher probability of mortality are also less likely to attend church due to physical or emotional limitations). “The new study addressed these criticisms by using rigorous methodology that controlled for common causes of attendance and mortality, used a larger sample size [74,534], and had repeated measurements over time of both attendance and health.” (Harvard School Of Public Health)
So, if you attend church more than once a week, you’re likely to live longer. And the same study also found that if you go to church more than once per week you’re less likely to experience depression, and you’re five times less likely to commit suicide. (see VanderWeele’s Reddit AMA)
So,
go to church.
You might also like: The Grace/Truth Equation: Church, Truth, and The Lies We Tell Ourselves.
[Image of the church congregation via Wikimedia Commons]
Kurt, thank you for your comments, information, and inspiration! I appreciate it every time I come here.
Glad you’re finding it helpful. Thanks for stopping by.
Interesting I recently read that people who read a lot live longer. And since I read His Holy Word daily I am reminded that His word says:
2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Forgive me, I’m a stickler about rightly dividing as I am about truth. Truth is important especially to those folks who have the gift of prophecy. Since Constantine changed the Creator’s holy Sabbath to the first day of the week under Roman rule, I personally prefer to follow the Living Word laid down from the beginning. Who are we to change His Word?:
Exo 16:29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
Exo 16:30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
This is His day of rest, His Sabbath, and it is wonderful not to “work” but have a complete rest as I read the Word and listen to teachings in my home. Then on the first day of the week, sundown on Saturday which begins God’s new (first) day, I resume “work”.
Gen_1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Respectfully, we are His “living body” which mankind calls His “church”. Unfortunately, the word church comes from “kirke” or circe. Circe is the daughter of helios, daughter of the sun. That is where we get “Sunday” from; that is where Catholicism got its Sunday worship straight from Babylon.
Without being curt, I guess I’m kind of bewildered that you would post a Catholic mass for your picture Kurt, whereby Christ is crucified in every Mass. And there is so much more but I will curtail this comment.