Friendship & Belonging in sermons

Friendship & Belonging comes up in 19% of the 49,328 transcribed sermons on Divining, most often in Unitarian Universalist (26%), Mennonite (23%), Jewish (23%) churches. It is preached more since 2025 (21% of sermons, up from 18%).

19% of sermons9,513 sermons14 denominations

Sermons on this theme talk about friendship, one another, belonging, community together, bear one anothers burdens, fellowship with, do life together, neighbor. Part of Love, Family & Relationships. Least common in Orthodox churches (1.0%).

Year by year

ProgressiveMainlineBlack churchEvangelicalAll churches
0%10%20%30%40%201620182020202220242026Progressive 2016: 28%Progressive 2017: 31%Progressive 2018: 28%Progressive 2019: 25%Progressive 2020: 24%Progressive 2021: 17%Progressive 2022: 24%Progressive 2023: 26%Progressive 2024: 30%Progressive 2025: 34%Progressive 2026: 35%Mainline 2016: 7.5%Mainline 2018: 21%Mainline 2019: 7.5%Mainline 2020: 13%Mainline 2021: 5.5%Mainline 2022: 4.8%Mainline 2023: 17%Mainline 2024: 23%Mainline 2025: 19%Mainline 2026: 18%Black church 2022: 10%Black church 2023: 17%Black church 2024: 16%Black church 2025: 18%Black church 2026: 18%Evangelical 2016: 16%Evangelical 2017: 16%Evangelical 2018: 15%Evangelical 2019: 21%Evangelical 2020: 18%Evangelical 2021: 7.8%Evangelical 2022: 8.1%Evangelical 2023: 15%Evangelical 2024: 18%Evangelical 2025: 20%Evangelical 2026: 19%All churches 2016: 22%All churches 2017: 22%All churches 2018: 22%All churches 2019: 22%All churches 2020: 22%All churches 2021: 12%All churches 2022: 17%All churches 2023: 23%All churches 2024: 25%All churches 2025: 27%All churches 2026: 20%

By denomination

Unitarian Universalist: 26% of 21,206 sermonsUnitarian Universalist26%Mennonite: 23% of 227 sermonsMennonite23%Jewish: 23% of 242 sermonsJewish23%United Church of Christ: 18% of 2,752 sermonsUnited Church of Christ18%African Methodist Episcopal: 17% of 1,402 sermonsAfrican Methodist Episcopal17%Presbyterian: 17% of 300 sermonsPresbyterian17%United Methodist: 16% of 3,745 sermonsUnited Methodist16%Christian / non-denominational: 15% of 7,785 sermonsChristian / non-denominational15%Baptist: 15% of 6,663 sermonsBaptist15%Unity: 12% of 844 sermonsUnity12%Lutheran: 12% of 639 sermonsLutheran12%Catholic: 4.2% of 334 sermonsCatholic4.2%Episcopal: 3.9% of 2,010 sermonsEpiscopal3.9%Orthodox: 1.0% of 305 sermonsOrthodox1.0%

All churches: 19%. Denominations with 150+ tagged sermons.

Preached alongside

Themes that share a sermon with Friendship & Belonging more often than chance (×2 = twice as often as in sermons overall).

4th Principle: Free & Responsible Search ×2.6The Good Samaritan ×2.2Loneliness & Isolation ×1.9Pluralism & Interfaith ×1.9Interdependence & Nature ×1.8Beloved Community ×1.8Unitarian Universalist Identity ×1.7Immigration & Refuge ×1.6

Churches that preach it most

Listen to sermons on Divining

Share of transcribed sermons on Divining with at least one chapter on a theme, from Divining’s topic segmenter; 2016 to Nov 2026. Updated Nov 2, 2026 · Site map · Divining: a deeper search for meaning · build_seo_pages v0.0.1