The church institution is a proving ground for those who have "named the name of Christ." Recognizing this, one is not impatient at the problems that arise in church to be solved. These are the tests of church, as well as of individual, growth. The church institution becomes to each student of Christian Science the proving ground where, through serving, he attains greater and greater heights of spirituality, service, humbleness, brotherhood, healing. Mrs. Eddy writes, "He who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God, its divine source." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 19
How wonderful it is to see growth take place! It must take place; God's law requires it. The real man and the true Church, of course, are not subject to material growth, struggles, toil, and so forth. They are safe in God, flawless, forever unfolding from the basis of His infinitude. But this truth must be proved in the church member's experience.
The true "Church" is defined by Mrs. Eddy as "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle."Science and Health, p. 583 One never has to go outside himself to improve or enlarge his sense of Church. In his own thinking one must reduce to nothingness the errors that seem to hide Church, errors that may be manifest in the institutional church: apathy, self-centeredness, envy, deception, factionalism, ambition, conservatism, domination. One tells himself the truth concerning each lie he sees; and only when he has seen its nothingness and God impels him does he speak of it to another. How important it is that every church member repeatedly ask himself what God is telling him about his church or his fellow church members and then listen to God!
