Church Alive

FOR SOME TIME, YOUTH VANDALISM HAD PLAGUED our Christian Science branch church on the northeast side of London. In fact, the whole street suffered from this sort of vandalism in one form or another.

BORN OUT OF THE POTATO FIELDS OF LONG ISLAND just after World War II, Levittown, New York, became one of the first planned suburban communities of tract housing in the United States. With the establishment of the new town, Levittown's first "pioneers," many of them war veterans, decided to set up life out in the country—30 miles east of New York City.

SOME SATURDAYS, the "spiritual breakfast" at the Silver Stallion diner can get a little noisy, reports Janet Wright, a member of the local Christian Science Society in Des Plaines, Illinois. Especially when she and a local church group are seated near another gathering that also meets regularly on Saturdays—the Civil War reenactore.

NESTLED IN GERMANY'S NORTHWESTERN CORNER, Oldenburg, a city of about 150,000, is home to our small—or should I say, steadily growing —Christian Science congregation. But our small Christian Science Society has only recently experienced this growth and expansion.

What a gift to share the efficacy of healing prayer — a fellowship that makes your heart burn within you with joy and inspiration. MENTION CHURCH FELLOWSHIP and people often think of picnics, potluck dinners, special get-togethers.

WHEN YOU THINK OF INDIA, Christian Science may not necessarily come to mind. But in the modern city of Chandigarh, located in northern India's Punjab region, just at the foot of the Shivalik mountains, a growing Christian Science congregation is leaving its humble mark.

AFTER OUR CHURCH BURNED DOWN IN JUNE OF 2002, we had to rethink everything. At the top of our list: where to hold services.

WHEN MY HUSBAND AND I MOVED TO A FARMING NEIGHBORHOOD in a new state, we wanted to get to know our new community right away, especially since it was not like any environment we had lived in before. Because church attendance is at the core of our lives, I suggested we meet fellow townspeople whose hearts are also with church.

At The Mother Church's Reading Room — just around the corner from The Mother Church itself — the windows present lively images of the ideas and comforting message that Christian Science brings to the world. The Journal talked with Librarian Margee Lyon about the activities and healings that go on inside the Reading Room.

RESILIENT AND DYNAMIC—TWO WORDS I USE to describe our Christian Science branch church membership. But we might not have called it either one as little as four years ago, about the time we embarked on the construction of a new church building.