ANALYSIS
The Global Flourishing Study shows, among many other things, that people all over the world need close social relationships and community participation.
Two of the defined “domains” of flourishing are meaning and relationships. “Meaning” had a complicated network of tributaries: Religious practice, stable marriage, a happy childhood and employment all tended to boost a sense of meaning. Religious service attendance was a consistent predictor of happiness, regardless of location or life stage.
Relationships were significant, specifically in terms of flourishing if they were relationships with parents, relationships with partners or spouses or relationships with community. Intuitively, better relationships tended to correlate with higher levels of overall flourishing.
Of course, Christians have known this all for a long time now.
Specifically, Biblical flourishing has always been realized through and alongside others, in service, in worship, in praise, in work — and, I would argue, in tending the created world. Our churches are a critical link between our need to solve for modern disconnection and to establish Biblical flourishing.
Biblical flourishing is a state of well-being supported by and lived out within God’s Word, and among God’s people. God made us to live in community with each other. He made us to sing together, to share our sorrows and joy. He also made us specifically to care for creation. In Genesis, we aren’t merely placed in Eden — we’re asked to extend its flourishing across the world.
But we live in an atomized, lonesome, anxious age. We’ve forgotten who we are, and who we were made to be. We’re spending more time on our phones than we are sharing or preparing meals.
Our needs for relationship and community participation are hard to meet in today’s culture, and that will only get worse.
But it’s for this very purpose that God created the church.
Churches can become more than the place people come on Sunday for worship. They can serve as ecosystems for flourishing where people can regularly eat together, pray together, and tend to what God is doing in their own neighborhoods.
And the practices that could make this possible might deliver an outsized impact without themselves becoming particularly complex, or large-scale.
For instance: I am part of a church where we eat a meal, open Scripture, pray for one another by name, and care for creation together. Most people aren’t.
But we can make these same rhythms present to anyone. We can build small groups that eat together, tend creation together, and explore God’s Word together.
Drawing people together repeatedly and in small ways over meals, work, and the Word could change lives; and over time, it could change entire community cultures.
So, bring people together and invite them to rediscover the joy of shared work. Give them a space where they can eat together — and normalize eating at each other’s homes. Give them a space where they can see God in the world around them and see God at work in the people tending it at their side.
This sort of reconnection doesn’t need to occur at large scales; in fact, it’s generally better when it’s just a few households at a time. It also doesn’t necessarily need to be led by church leadership, though it can be.
It does need to be intentional, earnest, and deliberately rooted in God’s Word. It does need to bring us back to the vision of ourselves and our lives that God had in mind when He made us: connected to each other, and to the world, in love and work.
So, turn to your church and build the relationships and community work that will help you and your fellow believers flourish. If you’re a church leader, gather some households and get them to start hosting meals!
In doing so, we will discover more than our own flourishing; we will come to better know our communities, our fellow believers and the needs of the created world within which we live.
Brendan McClenahan is the church engagement manager for Plant With Purpose and creator of Tend
