{"id":2370,"date":"2012-04-30T07:13:24","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T11:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/?p=2370"},"modified":"2012-04-30T07:16:58","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T11:16:58","slug":"do-you-value-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/04\/do-you-value-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Do You Value Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2012\/04\/477880_time_for_church_4.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2372\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2012\/04\/477880_time_for_church_4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>I was surprised to learn that just 21% of people who call themselves Christians are committed to a community of faith (<em>Faith<\/em> by George Barna). Even though the Apostles&#8217; Creed affirms that we believe in the communion of saints, many Christians in America feel this is unnecessary to their spiritual maturity.<\/p>\n<p>Add to this another disturbing finding by Willow Creek Association researchers: The longer a person exploring Christ attends church, the less likely he or she is to follow Christ. REVEAL research notes that people who are exploring Christ and attended church for more than five years were more likely to say they were discontented in their spiritual growth than those who attended less than five years (<em>Move<\/em> by Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Zondervan, 2011). So what is going on here?<\/p>\n<p>The longer you are in church, the more stalled in your walk you become.? Then why bother to assemble with other believers?<\/p>\n<p>The simply answer? Jesus thought it was a good idea and established the church as a community for believers. But we believers are finding reasons not to meet in a church setting.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, I will share my thoughts as to why people don&#8217;t go to church. Love to make this a dialogue. Share your thoughts!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do you think so many Christians don&#8217;t value going to church?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was surprised to learn that just 21% of people who call themselves Christians are committed to a community of faith (Faith by George Barna). Even though the Apostles&#8217; Creed affirms that we believe in the communion of saints, many Christians in America feel this is unnecessary to their spiritual maturity. Add to this another&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[913,914,917,916],"tags":[1238,1228,1237,1234,729,1235,1232,1231,1233,1236],"class_list":["post-2370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-couple-relationships","category-family-relationships-2","category-friend-relationships","category-god-relationship","tag-church-and-relevance-to-daily-life","tag-church-attendance","tag-church-goers","tag-daily-living","tag-faith","tag-faith-community","tag-going-to-church","tag-living-our-faith","tag-relevancy-of-church","tag-spiritual-maturity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do You Value Church?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/04\/do-you-value-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do You Value Church?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was surprised to learn that just 21% of people who call themselves Christians are committed to a community of faith (Faith by George Barna). Even though the Apostles&#8217; Creed affirms that we believe in the communion of saints, many Christians in America feel this is unnecessary to their spiritual maturity. Add to this another&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/04\/do-you-value-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-30T11:13:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-30T11:16:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2012\/04\/477880_time_for_church_4.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Do You Value Church?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/04\/do-you-value-church.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Do You Value Church?","og_description":"I was surprised to learn that just 21% of people who call themselves Christians are committed to a community of faith (Faith by George Barna). Even though the Apostles&#8217; Creed affirms that we believe in the communion of saints, many Christians in America feel this is unnecessary to their spiritual maturity. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2370"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2408,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}