Each year branch church lecture committees all over the world meet to plan Christian Science lectures for the coming lecture year. During this period the lecturers Members of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship. and the staff at The Mother Church strive to recognize divine Principle's complete and unerring control. Branch church lecture committees and, in fact, all church members can be alert to acknowledge God's government of the lecturing activity. Not just at their church's lecture-giving time but before, during, and after the scheduling.
Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, states in Science and Health, "Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action." Science and Health, p. 454. This truth is certainly applicable to all phases of the lecture work. Divinely inspired motives give spiritual impetus to necessary preparation, including the scheduling of each lecture, and enhance the effective communication of the message to a receptive audience.
What is our primary motive in giving lectures? Surely it is to embrace our community with the love of Christ and to share truths that will enlighten—to correct misconceptions about Christian Science and its Leader, and awaken, purify, and heal. In writing of the Board of Lectureship, Mrs. Eddy says, "The purpose of its members is to subserve the interest of mankind, and to cement the bonds of Christian brotherhood, whose every link leads upward in the chain of being." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 339. With the motive of subserving "the interest of mankind" uppermost, lecture committees are less likely to be trapped in the rigidity of tradition or to be inflexible as to time of year, day of week, time of day, or location of lectures. All such considerations will be motivated by the question, "How will the needs of mankind and, in particular, of those receptive neighbors of the church best be served?"
