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[The following is excerpted from the book, Gather: Getting to the Heart of Going to Church, Copyright © 2021 by M. Hopson Boutot. Click here to download the entire book for free.]  

Family dinners matter. Researchers have shown that the time-tested tradition of a family gathering around a dinner table talking to one another has a host of positive benefits. 

Dinnertime conversations are proven to increase vocabulary even more than reading books aloud to your children (1). Want to know the easiest way to predict high achievement scores among middle and high schoolers? Don’t look first to the time spent at school or doing homework. Look at their family’s mealtime habits (2). Additional benefits include an overall healthier lifestyle, reduction of symptoms in various medical disorders, decreased anxiety, lower likelihood of high-risk teenage behaviors like smoking, binge drinking, marijuana use, and more. These benefits have led one Harvard professor to conclude that family dinners are “the most important thing you can do with your kids.”(3)  While she overstates her case, she’s right that family dinners matter more than many people think.

The same is true for gatherings at your local church. Showing up matters more than many people think. And yet, like the many families who neglect the healthy habits of a technology-free dinner, there are far too many professing Christians who neglect the importance of regularly gathering with God’s people.

Several years ago, Thom Rainer reported on declining church attendance in America. He states:

The number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that members attend with less frequency than they did just a few years ago. Allow me to explain. . . . If the frequency of attendance changes, then attendance will respond accordingly. For example, if 200 members attend every week the average attendance is, obviously, 200. But if one-half of those members miss only one out of four weeks, the attendance drops to 175. Did you catch that? No members left the church. Everyone is still relatively active in the church. But attendance declined over 12 percent because half the members changed their attendance behavior slightly. (4)

Most Christians would agree that church attendance matters. But far too often our actions speak louder than words. Far too often we say showing up matters, but we act as if it only matters when it’s convenient.

Parents should want to eat dinner with their children, undistracted by smartphones and smart TVs. They should want to eat dinner with their kids simply to spend time with them. But the truth is, sometimes even well-meaning parents don’t want what they should want. Sometimes hearing all the benefits of family dinner helps parents to feel rightly about its importance.

Similarly, Christians should want to gather with God’s people. They should want to gather with God’s people, because when they do God shows up. But the truth is, sometimes even well-meaning Christians don’t want what they should want. Sometimes hearing other benefits of faithfully gathering helps us to feel rightly about its importance. Over the next few weeks on the blog we’ll examine nine additional benefits of faithfully gathering with God’s people.

1. Catherine E. Snow and Diane E. Beals, “Mealtime Talk That Supports Literacy Development,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 2006, no. 111 (2006): 51–66, https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.155.

2. Sandra L. Hofferth and John F. Sandberg, “How American Children Spend Their Time,” Journal of Marriage and Family 63, no. 2 (2001): 295–308.

3. Anne Fishel, “The Most Important Thing You Can Do with Your Kids? Eat Dinner with Them.,” Washington Post, accessed March 5, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-with-your-kids-eat-dinner-with-them/.

4. Thom S. Rainer, “The Number 1 Reason for the Decline in Church Attendance,” Lifeway Research, December 17, 2018, https://lifewayresearch.com/2018/12/17/the-number-1-reason-for-the-decline-in-church-attendance/.