Why do you go to church?
These are the reasons the 26th President of the United States believed it was important.
10 REASONS FOR GOING TO CHURCH
By: The 26th President of the United States – Theodore Roosevelt
"Ladies’ Home Journal" 1917
1. In this actual world a churchless community, a community where
men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is
a community on the rapid downgrade.
2. Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the
habit of feeling some responsibility for others and the sense of braced
moral strength which prevents a relaxation of one’s own moral fiber.
4. Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the
Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees, or by
a running brook, or in one’s own house, just as well as in church. But,
I also know as a matter of cold fact the average man does not thus
worship or thus dedicate himself. If he stays away from church he does
not spend his time in good works or in lofty meditation. He looks over the colored supplement of the newspaper.
5. He may not hear a good sermon at church. But, unless he is
very unfortunate he will hear a sermon by a good man who, with his good
wife, is engaged all the week long in a series of wearing and humdrum and important tasks for making hard lives a little easier.
9. I advocate a man’s joining in church works for the sake of showing his faith by his works.
10. The man who does not in some way, active or not, connect
himself with some active, working church misses many opportunities for
helping his neighbors, and therefore, incidentally, for helping
himself.