{"id":6267,"date":"2023-01-16T02:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T02:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:46","slug":"attending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6267","title":{"rendered":"ATTENDING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I pulled into the church parking lot this morning, I had trouble finding an empty spot. I had to park way out in the far lot &#8211; and it was not because I was running late.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t remember the last time I couldn&#8217;t find a spot in the first couple of rows next to the front doors.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And once inside, the sanctuary felt fuller too.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It got me wondering &#8211; does church attendance spike during January, like gym attendance does?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By some estimates gym crowds increase by 30 to 50% in January &#8230; before returning to normal by mid-February.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People use the new year as a springboard to renew their dedication to fitness and exercise, but then find it hard to keep it going as time marches on.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I would not be surprised if something similar happens in churches.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We know we SHOULD be working on our spirits, but it&#8217;s hard to hold on to our motivation as days turn into weeks and weeks into months.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I pulled into the church parking lot this morning, I had trouble finding an empty spot. I had to park way out in the far lot &#8211; and it was not because I was running late. I don&#8217;t remember the last time I couldn&#8217;t find a spot in the first couple of rows next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6268,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions\/6268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}