Dr. Joy Trauth, an instructor in Biological Sciences Department at ASU, wrote a two part guest editorial that appeared in this past Saturday's and Sunday's Jonesboro Suns.  Her title is "Why Students Fail College Classes."  I refer here only to Saturday's offering.l 

To summarize, she began with a total of 309 students in August.  Sixty (60) dropped over the course of the semester--the average number of absences for those sixty was 9 for a course that met three times a week for 15 weeks.  So those students had missed, on average, one-fifth of the class sessions.  Of the remaining 249 students who did not drop, 12.4% received A's, 20.5% received B's, 24.9% received C's, 22.5% received D's, and 19.8% received F's.  Of noteworthy significance is that of the A's and B's, the average number of absences was 2.4 and 14 had perfect attendance.  The D's and F's averaged 8.3 absences and only four of them had no absences.

Actually, Dr. Trauth demonstrated great grace inasmuch as ASU's handbook states that in a 3-day-per-week class, any student may be assigned an F when absences exceed six.

But here's my point.  Preachers are expected to be cheerleaders for church members regarding attendance.  Granted, there's no explicit "attendance policy" and no letter grades given for attendance or performance.  However, I believe the principle of success based in large part on attendance Dr. Trauth shows in the university environment holds in the spiritual environment of the church.  Those who attend the most seem miraculously to have the most successful ventures with their faith.  Besides that, there is the advantage to them of being fully integrated into the fellowship and ministry of the church.  And, no surprise here, those who are spotty and sporadic, who demonstrate less than a whole-hearted approach to faith, are the ones whose faith most often can't take the strains that life puts on all of us.  In the case of the church there are exceptions; there are 100% attenders present for the wrong reasons who don't grow much and there are infrequent attenders whose infrequency is because of work or illnesses, which I believe God judges and deals with a different way since He knows hearts.

I watched aging saints in Piggott grow infirm and agonize over no longer being able to attend the activities and assemblies of the church.  They all would shake their heads and tell me to tell those who were able to be there but weren't what a treasure from heaven they willingly missed.

Just some food for thought.

Blessings to all.