A Christian Science lecture is an important event in any neighborhood. It might be likened somewhat to the teaching and preaching of Christ Jesus and his apostles when multitudes were drawn to hear the message of Christ and were healed and refreshed. Positive proofs of healings accomplished during a lecture on Christian Science often come to the notice of the lecturer and members of the church sponsoring the lecture.
Preparing for the presentation of a lecture is a joyful and rewarding task for the church member. To him, a lecture is a spiritual feast to which he is privileged to invite others. He knows that the receptive ones who accept the invitation and attend will feel the presence of the Christ. He knows too that many will gain a better understanding of how Christian Science heals, namely through the employment of spiritual means alone. That is why so many church members invite neighbors, friends, relatives, and even strangers to a lecture.
A Christian Science lecture often has an awakening effect on the new student. He may be aroused to the realization that sickness, sin, and discords of all nature are unreal. Perhaps he begins to discern the fact that God's universe, the only universe, is perfect, complete, good. If the student carefully follows the lecturer's line of spiritual reasoning, he will respond by mentally identifying himself as the diseaseless, deathless, and sinless expression of God's being.
The writer will never forget the first lecture she attended. The radiant, happy faces she saw all around her were very impressive and lifted her to a joyous expectancy of good. She was enlightened by the sincere statements which made plain the practical aspects of Christian Science. She was delighted to hear that God is always present, always ready to help in every need. She was assured that one can be released from sin, sickness, worry, lack, bad habits, and confusion by knowing that he belongs to God, that God loves him, and that discord has no true existence.
We read in Psalms (46:6,) "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted." So it is with the ignorant, resisting false beliefs entertained by mankind. They crumble and disintegrate when they are stirred by Truth. The human consciousness is then ready for an exchange of material beliefs for spiritual facts.
A Christian Science lecture is designed to dissolve inharmonious, carnal thinking and to replace it with harmonious, Christlike thoughts. The lecturer points the way to moral, mental, and physical healing through a spiritualizing and enlightening process.
Have you ever watched a baby chick peck open its shell and peer out with wonderment at what would seem to be a new world? Once the chick yields to the power which impels it to burst out of its captivity, it has no desire to go back. The chick becomes adjusted very quickly to its new-found freedom and finds everything needful and good already provided for it.
Do we know of those who are closed up in a shell of dense materialism or walled in by fear or failure? Does someone we know need to break his shell of sorrow, self-depreciation, or lack? Then let us invite him to a Christian Science lecture, that he may come and hear the truth which will liberate him from bondage. Such imprisonment is illegitimate, caused only by enslaving beliefs of an existence apart from God.
Those who are willing to partake of the inspiring message of the lecture and to step out of confining misconceptions will find much good awaiting them when they start their mental and spiritual progress toward freedom and security. Christ Jesus said (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, established The Christian Science Board of Lectureship in 1898 in order to bring the healing truths of Christian Science to the attention of as many people as possible. Lectures are an important function of every Church of Christ, Scientist. The Manual of The Mother Church, inspirationally conceived by our Leader, provides that at least one lecture be given annually by each branch church as well as by The Mother Church. Many churches sponsor two or more lectures each year.
In lecture preparation nothing is of greater importance than consecrated metaphysical work, or prayer. Christian Scientists have a definite obligation to use their spiritual understanding in order that each lecture may reach and rouse the receptive heart. Since one of the main objectives of a Christian Science lecture is to heal, faithful prayer is indeed necessary. They have a right to know that the divine law of attraction provides all that is necessary to move the needy one to accept their invitations and to investigate the teachings of Christian Science.
The enthusiasm and consecration of each member help to make sure that the lecture performs its wonderful mission of awakening and feeding humanity and that it inspires both member and attendant to imbibe more of Truth during the lecture and to retain it afterward. Let each of us unite in a deep desire to share our spiritual understanding with others. Let us feel the grand impulse to open our hearts and stretch forth our arms to all mankind through prayerful action. Then will every contrite heart feel the influence of collective, unified Love and answer the call to come. Then will be evidenced a world-wide yearning for a better understanding of God, and mankind will be persuaded by the imploration in Jeremiah (22:29), "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord."
In her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 our Leader writes (p. 11), "If a postal service, a steam engine, a submarine cable, a wireless telegraph, each in turn has helped mankind, how much more is accomplished when the race is helped onward by a new-old message from God, even the knowledge of salvation from sin, disease, and death." The hour spent listening to a Christian Science lecture, where Truth is revealed and felt, breaks down barriers of darkness and brings true consciousness to light.
