Three Reasons Why You Should Join a Faith Tradition
Many people today look down on spirituality as illogical and pointless. However, people who belong to religions receive many benefits from their spiritual practices that even the most skeptical person cannot discount.
A Close-Knit Community
Members of religions belong to tight-knit communities based on shared beliefs and values. Some share a commitment to understanding the Bible, such as The Way International, while others are united through their love of certain rituals or service to others. Most faith traditions have regular meetings where members gather to express their faith through conversation, rituals or both.
Afterward, most members linger to speak with other believers, and they develop close friendships through their time together. Additionally, most faith traditions offer groups outside of their weekly services for people of all ages to meet and engage in shared pastimes. These groups often involve helping other people but others simply provide an opportunity for people to see each other and discuss their lives, including their spiritual practices.
A Support Network
Faith communities do not just provide friendship during normal life; they also guarantee a support network during times of distress. Most faith traditions have an established ritual for funerals, so when members must plan their loved ones’ burials, they have some choice in what happens but they do not have the stress of planning the entire funeral.
Additionally, most faith communities have programs to help members in need. These include delivering meals to new parents or people recovering from surgeries, visiting sick members in the hospital and providing financial assistance to struggling members. While these programs are usually not as well-funded or regulated as government-assistance programs, they are easier to access and serve a wider population.
A Sense of Purpose
While every faith tradition has a slightly different focus, all of them give people a sense of direction in their lives. This feeling of purpose is incredibly important during times of crisis, such as the one caused by the novel coronavirus, when it is easy to lose motivation to do anything. Part of this meaningfulness comes from the importance of community, which most faith traditions sustain virtually by live-streaming services and offering small group meetings over videoconferencing software.
However, another part of it originates from faith traditions’ emphasis on something beyond the physical world, whether it is the afterlife, reincarnation or another belief about what happens after people die. Because most religious people believe in a greater power, their daily experiences of suffering have a meaning beyond the ordinary. While religious people still struggle with faith during crises, their sense of purpose puts them in a better position to avoid despair in the face of suffering.
Skeptics often criticize faith traditions because they require belief in ideas or events that cannot be proven. Even though the central beliefs of most religious groups must be taken on faith, members receive material benefits from the other people who participate in the group. Through the support of their fellow believers and the direction provided by their faith tradition, followers of religions have extra support to help them through difficult times.
