I lived for a time in a small riverfront town that boasted a main street without traffic lights, a bread bakery without equal, and a pair of Christian churches without rivalry. Just across the way from one another stood a Christian Science church and a Protestant church whose denomination I no longer recall. I do, however, recall the minister of the second church. He was so abundantly blessed with the simplicity which is in Christ that it was easy to picture him coming from a simpler era.
After moving to the town and joining the Christian Science church, I found a warm cordiality between the two institutions, and felt a freedom, although not a need, to attend across the way occasionally. Members from the other church felt welcome at our services, too.
One Sunday when I went to hear the minister preach, he offered a prayer of gratitude to God for His many gifts. The minister thanked God for the beauty of the town, the warmth of the people, and finally for the other Christian church in town. That prayer broke through as a narrow shaft of light for me that has since become more diffuse, illumining a wider, more whole sense of Church.
