THE building of a Christian Science church is a testing time, a period of purification, consecration, and unselfish individual as well as collective growth. Church building is not only an expression of spiritual thinking, but a demand for continued spiritual progress; and sometimes it calls for a great sacrifice of material things. Although it seems to manifest itself in the erection of what mortals call solid masonry, building is not primarily concerned with a material structure. The material edifice symbolizes the spiritual understanding among church members as to what the real Church signifies. When there abides in the consciousness of Christian Scientists the true sense of Church, "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle," as Mrs. Eddy in part defines it on page 583 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," then the necessary material structure will appear. This outward manifestation meets what seems to human consciousness a pressing need, but the real Church structure is reared in the understanding and lives of the Christian Scientists themselves. If Christian Scientists failed as a whole to attest by healing and improved spiritual living the truth about God, man, and the universe, then the material structure would be meaningless and useless.
Hence, in the building of a Christian Science church it is essential that it be brought about through a spiritual unfoldment of the power, presence, harmony, and substance of divine Mind, or Love. Pursuing Mrs. Eddy's definition of "Church" we find the words, "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."
In the work of demonstrating the true concept of Church, will not the members find throughout the process that it is their "dormant understanding" which must first be aroused "from material beliefs" before they are able to do God's work in performing this same service for others? The apprehension of the spiritual idea of Church is part of their own healing, and as this takes place through the unfoldment of a more spiritual concept, it will express itself in the harmonious manifestation of all that is needed to erect the material structure. The "devils" or evils to be cast out are no part of the real man, and each member will often have to impersonalize his sense of evil. By applying Mrs. Eddy's beautiful definition of Church to their own problem, step by step they will erect the real Church in their understanding, and the right human action will follow thereafter, naturally and surely. It will then be seen that church building is not a great human achievement, a manifestation of unusual human endeavor, ingenuity, and ability; that it is not concerned, primarily, with questions of money, size of membership, location, architecture, or human ways and means. Since Christian Science is the religion of Love, church building is an expression of unselfed love. If it fails to manifest this quality, its demonstration will be difficult, tedious, and protracted. Therefore, any obstacle to its harmonious unfoldment must be looked for by each member in his individual consciousness, and overcome there.
