TWICE each year the Christian Science churches throughout the world extend a loving invitation to those interested in this teaching to join their membership. When these invitations are given, there will come to many the question, "Why should I join the church?" This is an entirely proper question, and before taking this step every one ought to be certain that it is answered satisfactorily. No one should join the Church of Christ, Scientist, without having some adequate sense of the benefits and obligations which this action brings. In any discussion of this subject it is supposed that the questioner gives assent to what are known as the tenets of Christian Science; that he is what may be called a Christian Scientist, but that he belongs to that large number who, believing in Christian Science and participating in its blessings, have not become a part of its church organization.
The benefits of church-membership are fundamentally the benefits of united effort. The church as an organization seeks to accomplish for men the same thing that men as individuals seek to accomplish for themselves. The object of this seeking is salvation, a saving from all sin, disease, and death, the establishment in human consciousness of man's dominion over all the earth. In brief, it is a complete knowledge of God and of man's relation to Him, and this is surely the aim and object of all aspiring men, whether they be conscious of it or not.
Now, if the highest aim of both the church and men is one and the same thing, namely, salvation, there is abundant reason for becoming a part of the church organization, for by so doing we are likely to gain salvation more quickly. In this age, which shows on every hand the great increase in effectiveness and efficiency which is brought about by organization on a right basis, it is almost self-evident that the individual will not only increase his own efficiency in the work of his salvation by becoming a part of the church organization, but that he will also add to the efficiency of the entire body by this step.
