Members of branch Churches of Christ, Scientist, often find themselves being asked to pray for the church services, the Sunday School, the Reading Room, a lecture, or their committees. A frequent response is, "How can I find the time to pray for all these activities? How can I give a specific, scientific treatment each day to each separate activity of church?"'
The first answer might be found in the question, "What is prayer?" Mrs. Eddy's chapter on Prayer in Science and Health describes it. On page 1 we read, "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds." This immediately changes the whole context of our work. We are dealing with more than verbal statements of truth and denials of evil. If our desire is for the spiritual progress of our church, we will not be thinking about who may not be doing his or her part in church work, we will not be concerned about those who are not coming to our services or Sunday School or Reading Room. We will have shifted the challenge to the only place it can ever exist for us— to our own consciousness. How great is our desire for our church's progress in demonstrating the healing power of Christian Science?
What do we envision for each aspect of our church—our services and Sunday School overflowing, our Reading Room full of students and strangers, our lectures attracting humanity? Do we see the validity of our religion as being manifest in healings, in better communities, in progress toward a peaceful, prosperous world?
These desires are part of our prayer for church. But what does Mrs. Eddy indicate should be the evidence of the effectiveness of our prayer? She points to love for our neighbor as the test of our prayer: "Do we pursue the old selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by living consistently with our prayer? If selfishness has given place to kindness, we shall regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them that curse us; but we shall never meet this great duty simply by asking that it may be done. There is a cross to be taken up before we can enjoy the fruition of our hope and faith." Science and Health, p. 9;
The answer is clear—prayer for church is not only saying words or holding to certain truths of God's allness and activity in the privacy of our home; it includes so strong a desire to demonstrate the allness of God, good, by healing, and to support and promote the Cause of Christian Science, that we are impelled to act. Affirmations of truth are useful and necessary, but unless their effect is to stir us to act, would they in fact be sincere desire and therefore true prayer?
If we want better testimonies in church, who but we should give them? If we want churches full of honest searchers for healing Truth, and healed and grateful members who have found it, who but we should be there with the friends we have invited? If we think more people should be turning to Science, who but we should be offering it to those in need? If we think the healings are not what they used to be, who but we should be doing better healing? If we find other Christian Science churches are not very warm and friendly, who but we should be looking around to welcome the stranger at every service in our own church?
When he told the parable of the good Samaritan, Christ Jesus added, "Go, and do thou likewise." Luke 10:37; And James tells us, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." James 1:27; Mrs. Eddy puts it another way: "It is sad that the phrase divine service has come so generally to mean public worship instead of daily deeds." Science and Health, p. 40.
Doesn't this make it clear, then, that the spirit of true prayer for church is earnest desire to practice more effectively the law of God as revealed through Christian Science, to grow spiritually, to learn to love more, to heal and to bless?
Is our desire truly great enough to inspire us to decide to do the needed praying and to make us dedicated church members, loving, selfless, joyous, obedient? If we can answer Yes, then divine Love will show us the time, the opportunity, and the enlightenment to pray scientifically for whatever aspect of church needs our prayers. And we will know if our prayer is effective by its result in our lives. If we are changed by selfless desire to more dedicated service and better healing, then we can joyfully claim that we not only have learned to pray effectively for church but are actually doing it.
