Recently, I came across an article about the growing student absences from school throughout the country during the past year. Apparently this has been reported and discussed throughout the summer until now. I found this news discussed in many papers, ranging from The Washington Post to The New York Times.
My understanding is that this growth seems to be due to habits that were formed, perhaps we might say broken, by the Pandemic. Remote learning apparently played a part. The stress we all were under didn't do any good either. A lot of times, it seems, parents were willing to give their kids a break, knowing what the hardships of school can be like, especially in our post-Pandemic landscape. This makes sense, and on the surface seems like a sweet thing to do. Unfortunately, we didn't foresee the habit-breaking this would cause down the road.
A part of me wonders if something similar is going on in church. I can't think of a parish or colleague I've talked with who hasn't said numbers are still down from what they were pre-Pandemic. Like schools, we utilized remote learning, or in our case "remote worshipping". For some, this may have broken the habit of in-person attendance. Now many of us need to rebuild the habit of worship.
For school absences, it is easy to understand the impact. We need school. We need the time to learn. This is important for our cognitive and social benefit. It is an important part of our growth. School clearly has a long-reaching importance for our lives.
What we often forget is that our spiritual health is important too. Spiritual health has an impact on our psychological health and can also impact out physical health too. Every aspect of our lives are important and connected, for God created all of them for us.
Our time in church not only connects us to each other in community, it connects us to God as well. Through that connection, we build our relationship with the Lord and grow stronger and healthier in our spirituality. In many ways, our time in church is just as important as our time in other places such as schools, even if that is not always immediately clear.
Now I'm not suggesting that we get rid of our online streaming options, nor would I ever. Doing so would not be good or healthy. There are times for all of us when we are sick or away and cannot be with our normal worship community. Online steaming allows us to stay connected at this time. It is also an amazing tool for evangelism as our time with God is now available for all the world to see.
What I am asking instead is to not let remote worshipping take the place of in-person worshipping on a regular basis. Come back and worship with us in person. If you need help reforming this habit, please reach out to me or to whoever your church leader may be. We want to worship together in the same room with you. We want to make that possible for you. We want to do whatever it takes to help you deepen your relationship with our Lord as we build up our spiritual health so that we might live better lives in service to God.