Often when we've completed a certain type of work, it's helpful to look back and consider what we've learned. This is particularly true when the duties we've finished have been in the service of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Our work has been successful if we can honestly say that we treasure the Church and its organizational method of making Christian Science available to mankind more than we ever did before.
Whether we're completing a term as Reader in a branch church, finishing a position as a committee member, concluding successful years as a Sunday School teacher, or completing some appointed task for The Mother Church, our increased appreciation for all that the Church means to humanity's welfare is the best reward we could possibly have. Such gratitude and love show that we're outgrowing self-centered personal aims and becoming more caring about the deep needs of others. And isn't this what our Church commitment should be doing for us?
We may have originally joined the Church because we were grateful for what it had done for us personally in enabling us more fully to understand and demonstrate the healing Christ, Truth. Yet as we grow spiritually, we find that something larger than even our personal welfare is involved. The Church of Christ, Scientist, and its branches exist to help people everywhere understand the allness of God, divine good, and the complete unreality of all evil, of all that does not bear witness to God's perfection and majesty.
