DEBATENATE

Topics / Everyday life

The challenge

“Going to church on Sunday is a waste of a weekend”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. It's the one part of the weekend that actually puts something back in you. Harvard researchers followed more than seventy thousand nurses for years. The women who went to services more than once a week had about a third lower risk of dying during the study than the women who never went. You'll say healthy people just go to church more. The researchers adjusted for a long list of health factors, and the gap held. Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. Rest and worship are a gift, built into how you're made. And Hebrews ten says don't give up meeting together. You weren't designed to do faith alone on a couch. Let me ask you this. If brunch and a nap fill you up, why does Monday still feel so empty? Sleep in Saturday. Show up Sunday.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. Regular worship is tied to longer, healthier lives. That's a strange definition of wasted time.

    A Nurses' Health Study analysis found women attending services more than once a week had about a third lower all-cause mortality over the study period than women who never attended, after adjusting for many health factors.

  2. Rest was God's idea before it was a weekend. One day set apart for worship and rest is built into how we're made.

    Jesus taught that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, in Mark chapter two.

  3. Church gives you what the rest of the weekend can't: the same people, week after week, who aren't paid to like you.

    Gallup found that in 2020, for the first time in its trend, fewer than half of Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. Hebrews ten urges believers not to give up meeting together.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: You can believe in God and be a good person without sitting through a sermon. Faith is personal, so why does attendance matter?

Nate: Faith is personal. It was never meant to be private. Scripture tells believers to gather and push each other on. A Christian who never shows up is a soldier who never joins his unit. Brave, maybe. Not for long.

The lines

Sources

  1. Li, Stampfer, Williams and VanderWeele, JAMA Internal Medicine, Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women (2016)
  2. The Bible, Mark 2:27
  3. Gallup, U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time (2021)
  4. The Bible, Hebrews 10:24-25

More like this