Pastors on church activities that might contribute to wellbeing

Welcome back! I am glad you are here. This is a third in a series of blogs discussing surveys performed by Teleios of pastors who graduated from conservative seminaries (Masters, Denver and Westminster). The first two surveys covered pastors’ adherence to biblical teaching and the influence of societal pressure on their beliefs posted on Apr 8, 2015 and May 13, 2015, respectively. Today is the third topic regarding what aspects of church life influence the wellbeing of attendees?

             Personal wellbeing has been frequently studied in recent years as a general indicator of an individual’s mental and physical health (1-5). Although variously defined, wellbeing might be considered as is a person’s emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives, including happiness, peace, fulfillment and life satisfaction (6). A number of factors may contribute to wellbeing including mental, physical and financial prosperity, socialization, marriage and a positive relationship with God (1,2,7-13).

Church attendance also has been demonstrated to be associated with improved wellbeing not only as a general parameter, but also with increasing frequency of attendance (1,2). Potential causes of this finding are not specifically known. Therefore, we surveyed pastors to learn what they perceive as contributes to wellbeing in their church. Teleios sent the survey to 976 pastors of whom 105 (11%) responded.

Our study found that overwhelmingly pastors believed the experiences of their congregation as positive to very positive, in all typical areas of church life. (Please see table for partial results). Those activities that showed the greatest ‘very positive’ responses were generally spiritual in nature including: praise, prayer, sermons, hearing the gospel and baptisms. Those that demonstrated the lowest ‘very positive’ answers were liturgical readings, amount of time spent at church, social structure within the church, Sunday school and children’s programs. Consequently, items not specifically discussed in Scripture, and potentially more rigid in design, potentially might aide wellbeing less although necessary they may be necessary at some level.

Why would church attendance help wellbeing? We do not know precisely, but potential causes could be from subordination of self-interests to those of a greater being (so personal problems are considered less onerous), social support, adoption of healthy practices through church emphasis on respect for the body, relief from anxiety through prayer and the discipline of gratitude (14-21).

In summary, our study suggested that church attendance, and especially the spiritually based activities, may contribute to wellbeing. These factors that help explain findings from prior studies that have shown church attendance having a positive influence on wellbeing.

Thanks for reading my blog. Join us next week as we continue our investigation of how the Bible might benefit personal wellbeing.

Table: Percent of Bible believing pastors indicating that a church activity would have a very positive response on wellbeing

	Responses	Percent
Praise (including musical worship)	58	55%
Prayer	59	56%
Liturgical readings	6	6%
Sermons	75	71%
Hearing the gospel explained	67	64%
Amount of church responsibility by members	32	30%
Baptismal services	59	56%
Celebration of communion	49	47%
Amount of time spent at church weekly	18	17%
Socializing with other worshipers	42	40%
Social structure within your church	21	20%
Children’s programs	31	30%
Small groups	41	39%
Sunday school	23	22%

How does church best help your wellbeing? To participate in our latest poll question - please visit our website at http://teleiosresearch.com/#anchorpoll

WC Stewart

http://teleiosresearch.com/

http://teleiosblog.blogspot.com/

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