For several years the sitcom Cheers featured a theme song with the words, "sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name."

There are fewer places where everybody (or anybody) knows our name.

In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert D. Putnam writes that we belong to fewer organizations than a couple of decades ago, know fewer neighbors, and visit fewer friends. Lots of Americans are bowling today, but they tend not to bowl in leagues. They bowl alone.

Church is one of the last bastions of "belonging." As a congregation, how do we foster a sense of belonging that is more than having our names on a membership roster?