When I was a senior in high school, our Sunday School teacher made us a promise: We could bring any question or any situation troubling us to class and he would help us find an answer from that week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson. He kept his word and in doing so demonstrated to us the inestimable value of studying the Bible Lesson every day. I was hooked.
That same teacher encouraged our class to join church. We all protested that we would be leaving for college in a year, so it did not seem timely. He countered that we could use that year to give back to our church community and reap the benefits of branch church membership. I loved Christian Science deeply, and that reasoning made sense to me. So I took the step of joining.
Little did I know how soon that decision would prove to be an important one. Shortly after I was admitted to membership, a relative had a health emergency that was unsettling for us all. I was trying to be calm and helpful, but I could hardly think straight. Right then the thought came to me that as a member of my branch church, I was part of a prayerful community that supported my growth in Christian Science. This brought an immediate sense of peace in that challenging time, and enabled me to pray for myself and my relative with greater clarity and confidence in God’s control.
Over the course of that last year before college, I ushered for Wednesday night testimony meetings and served in the children’s room at lectures. It was a real joy to give back to the church that had nurtured me all those years in Sunday School. I also had a wonderful healing of the effects of a car accident in which all that I had learned in Sunday School came to me in full force and became wonderfully practical (see Christian Science Sentinel, June 28, 1993).
After I took the initial step of joining church, transferring membership to local churches whenever I moved followed naturally. Church has given me a solid grounding everywhere I’ve lived and helped me establish a permanent sense of home even when everything else was new. My high school Sunday School teacher’s practicality, encouragement, and helpful teaching turned out to be gifts that have blessed me every day of my life since.
