{"id":16257,"date":"2005-07-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2005\/07\/01\/friendship-boosts-church-attendance\/"},"modified":"2005-07-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-01T00:00:00","slug":"friendship-boosts-church-attendance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/friendship-boosts-church-attendance\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendship Boosts Church Attendance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;best friend&#8221; factor is the tie that binds many people to their current congregation. Aside from family members, 39% of respondents said their &#8220;best friend&#8221; attends the same church, in a survey conducted by the Gallup Organization for Group. Gallup points to the impact in several areas:<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>&#8226; Community life:<\/strong> The best friends in the same congregation attend more regularly than the loners, 72% at least once a week compared to 51% whose best friend attends a different church.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>&#8226; Belonging:<\/strong> Best friends in the same church feel more connected to the congregation (84% to 71%) and feel like the leaders care for them (82% to 67%).<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>&#8226; Faith:<\/strong> Best friends in the same church feel closer to God and display a more integrated faith. They are more likely to worship and pray daily (69% to 51%) and say their faith is involved in all of life (74% to 54%).<\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>&#8250;&#8250; Lessons for pastors:<\/strong> Create opportunities for faith-building friendships. Preach a sermon series on the value of friends. And schedule a Lucy and Ethel Sunday. <\/p>\n    <p class=\"is-style-article-source\">&#8212;with survey data from Gallup (April 2005)<\/p>\n    \n    \n    <p class=\"is-style-article-copyright\">Copyright &copy; 2005 by the author or Christianity Today\/<em>Leadership<\/em> Journal.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/le\/help\/permissionsprivacy\/permissions.html#answer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"copyright\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a> for reprint information on <em>Leadership<\/em> Journal.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;best friend&#8221; factor is the tie that binds many people to their current congregation. Aside from family members, 39% of respondents said their &#8220;best friend&#8221; attends the same church, in a survey conducted by the Gallup Organization for Group. Gallup points to the impact in several areas: &#8226; Community life: The best friends in <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/friendship-boosts-church-attendance\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154,160],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[693,156,696],"tax_ctp_tags":[3604,4021,5074,5190],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-16257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_publications-2005-leadership-journal","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_publications-summer_2005-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-church-attendance","tax_ctp_tags-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-statistics","tax_ctp_tags-trends"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Friendship Boosts Church Attendance - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The &quot;best friend&quot; factor is the tie that binds many people to their current congregation. 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