Dear fellow members and friends,
We warmly invite you to Annual Meeting 2018! Join us in Boston or online as part of our worldwide church family. Below you will find a message from the Christian Science Board of Directors. There is also an invitation video with last year's chair, Allison W. Phinney, and this year's chair, Robin Hoagland, sharing some thoughts on the theme of the meeting.
Warmly,
Suzanne Riedel
Clerk of The Mother Church
Dear Church family,
Something life-changing happened on the way to a church service. Two friends stopped to talk with a disabled man asking for money. What they offered him was something entirely different—a new sense of spiritual power they’d found in the teachings and example of Christ Jesus. It met his need as nothing else had, and he was immediately healed. Leaping up with great joy, he joined them as they walked in together to worship God.
This familiar story of Peter and John encountering the lame man outside the Temple in Jerusalem (see Acts 3) has lost none of its contemporary significance. For all the advances society has made in the past two millennia, the human heart still yearns for relief from pervasive suffering and to find what truly satisfies. Carrying forward the discovery and practice of Christian Science, our Church is uniquely poised to meet that need as we respond—individually and collectively—to what Spirit is doing within us and around us.
At last year’s Annual Meeting, we came together and genuinely felt “the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 249). And in subsequent regional meetings with members, we’re hearing encouraging examples of this newness—a new affection and support for fellow members, a fresh appreciation for the deep spiritual resources we have as a Church, an invigorated sense of our ability to respond to the needs of our communities.
This Spirit-based and Spirit-impelled newness doesn’t thrill for a moment and then fade. It transforms, and keeps transforming. The Bible sums it up beautifully: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). None of us can remain bound by limited, outworn, material ways of thinking and doing. As the man at the Beautiful Gate discovered when his long-standing debility yielded to walking and leaping, life has to be lived day in and day out from a whole different standpoint. This practical spirituality is the demand of our times. And Church is the natural gathering point for us as we walk in the Spirit together. Each of us is essential, and all of us are needed in this holiest Cause bringing genuine hope to humanity.
Please join with us in person or online for Annual Meeting, June 4, 2018, as we deepen what it actually means to live and walk in the Spirit.
With much love,
The Christian Science Board of Directors
Annual Meeting 2018 Events
Saturday, June 2
2:00–3:30 p.m.
Reading Rooms and Sunday Schools in today’s world: Participate in a lively discussion on making these spiritual resources practical avenues for our communities' needs.
Saturday, June 2
7:30–8:30 p.m.
A hymn sing of old and new favorites—walking and singing in the Spirit.
Sunday, June 3
1:00–2:30 p.m.
Walking with the Word: Explore the unparalleled healing relevance of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures around the world and right at hand.
Monday, June 4
1:00-3:00 p.m.
Annual Meeting of The Mother Church
“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25)
