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Seven years ago, Reggie Benson was so full of rage his mother could not control him.Today, things are much different. On a recent Sunday morning, the ninth-grader was in church. His single mom was asleep in an apartment across the street, but Reggie took his spot beside the other boys. And if you stop by this small Pasadena church on a Sunday evening, Saturday afternoon, or a weekday at 6 A.M., you'll find Reggie there—eager to learn.

His grades have jumped from C's to A's, and he is a leader among the younger kids.

One of his mentors, Rudy Carrasco, believes Reggie was transformed because local believers invested in every aspect of his life over a long period.

"Church is seven days a week," says Carrasco, associate director at Harambee Christian Family Center, a community outreach for children in Pasadena. Reggie's mother had sent him to Harambee after school and on weekends in search of some way to tame his temper. The center is also where Reggie's church meets.

Reggie (whose name, like that of all other youths in this story, is fictitious) comes from a community in which racism, poverty, and drug abuse deplete the neighborhood's natural resources. The church can be the path for kids like him to find a future, both spiritually and academically.

In a recent study, researchers Mark Regnerus and Glen Elder Jr. demonstrate that when youth from low-income neighborhoods attend church, their academic performance improves.

The study, commissioned by the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, relied on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the relationship between religion and academics in nearly 10,000 students. Regnerus and Elder found that the poorer the neighborhood, the more church attendance helped kids to improve academically. The findings held true even after controlling for obvious influences like a student's relationship with parents.

Furthermore, improving academic performance seems to flow more from "doing" church than from merely believing. That is, the church's social life influences youth from poor communities more than doctrine does. In neighborhoods where libraries and schools are often depleted and after-school jobs are hard to find, the church is the main resource-rich presence in the community.

Beyond faith and schoolwork, studies show that church involvement improves the physical, social, and emotional health of students.

"What you have in the role of the religious community is a selected group of people who share values and are committed to the success of the child," says Elder, a researcher at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "Somebody always has his hand on your back." Elder and others believe the church strengthens a child's ability and resolve to overcome difficulty. Stronger character translates into better grades.

"Academics is about discipline," says Regnerus, a professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "So is attending church. The act of going every week is about rising every Sunday and doing a routine thing."

Church attendance also convinces low-income students that their lives matter, and that they have choices and hope for a better future. Pamela Parker, an assistant principal in Chicago's public school system, discovered this during her doctoral studies when she interviewed 10 young women who had succeeded despite difficult circumstances.

The women came from a low-income community. Single parents, foster parents, or grandparents raised most of them. Many were teen mothers, and one girl's parents had been killed in a drug-related crime. Despite the odds, each student completed her high school degree.

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May 21 2002, Vol. 46, No. 6