Although an usher in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, may seem only to be greeting people, handing out copies of the Christian Science Quarterly or the Christian Science Hymnal, or showing someone to an available seat, the activity actually includes so much more. For example, the usher helps set the tone for the church service by praying in support of the harmony of the service and the prospering of the spiritual ideas included in the sermon.
Couldn't anyone with any kind of thought stand there, greet people, and pass out the needed items? Well . . . yes, but it wouldn't be fulfilling the unique purpose of our Church. In 1879 Mrs. Eddy and her followers voted "To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church, p. 17. Each one on the usher staff can use this mandate as a goal: to reinstate primitive Christianity.
An usher strives to fulfill this goal by expressing the Christ, Jesus' Godlike nature. Embodying Christlike qualities such as compassion and self-forgetfulness gives an usher the stamina, gentleness, and good humor needed in dedicated work as a church usher.
Our sincere desire to serve God through church work teams with our effort to demonstrate our spiritual selfhood as God's reflection and to keep free from material limitations that would impede our activity. Several times in my early experiences as an usher I left for church feeling unwell but with a willingness and a desire to fulfill my duty and be at my appointed place. Recognizing that impersonal evil (which was appearing as illness) was slyly attempting to keep me from my post, I prayed all the way to church. Each suggestion of discomfort was annulled by reversing it with spiritual truths of God and man. By the time I reached the church, I was well. Although this happened several times, it never stopped me from being at my necessary and valuable position as usher; and through continued prayer, the suggestions of ill health ceased altogether. Christian healing had been ushered into my own life!
The same demonstration of Christlike qualities that enables us to serve church, ushers in healing for those attending the services. To illustrate: A woman entered a church service feeling very ill. The usher's spiritualized thought and cordial greeting, however, so uplifted her that as she walked to a seat she felt the glow of this Christly love like a cozy blanket enfolding her. This warmth of divine Love dissolved every ache and discomfort, and she was instantly and completely healed! What had happened? It was not charisma or magnetism or some kind of magic that took place between her and the usher; it was nothing personal. It was the Christ blessing all and revealing man's wholeness and healthfulness so that pains or restrictive movements could not remain.
Christliness includes the love that blesses everyone. As a candle sends out its warmth and light in every direction, the Christ presence imparts love to all. When one feels a great welling up of God's love within his being, it is inevitably communicated to others as well.
But what about the usher who, even though he or she has a spiritualized, loving thought, appears to have a physical difficulty? For example, for many months a man had a growth on his face. Yet his spirituality outshone the physical presentation, and he was asked to usher in his branch church. Realizing how he must look to others, he was at first rather reluctant, but then he decided, "I'm here to serve, as 'a doorkeeper in the house of my God.'" Ps. 84:10.
When we are faced with a physical challenge, we can humbly pray in the way that Christ Jesus must have prayed, understanding the spiritual perfection God has bestowed on all His offspring. God makes no ugliness. And because He is the only creator, nothing foreign can invade man's being or attach itself to him. Man's true being is one with God's— spiritual, whole, and beautiful.
When one feels a
great welling up of God's
love within his being,
it is inevitably
communicated
to others as well.
Praying consistently "to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" II Cor. 5:8. demands a humble trust in God, a quiet assurance that we can face and ultimately overcome error and not be discouraged in the meantime. This is what the man did, and he courageously continued to usher.
Then one day at his office he felt a strange sensation on his face. Leaving his desk and going into the men's room, he saw in the mirror that the growth was effortlessly draining away
With gratitude for the results of his persistent prayer and unwavering obedience to God, he washed his face. The skin was entirely normal and unblemished. Once again, primitive Christianity's "lost element of healing" was ushered into the present.
Practicing wholehearted obedience to God, we demonstrate that real action, power, presence, and substance are in and of Spirit. Christian Science explains the truths of spiritual creation and the perfection of God's universe, including man. Using the Bible as her guidebook, Mrs. Eddy discerned that God's all-inclusive goodness and His love for all His children were the basis for healing sickness as well as sin. She perceived that sin and disease were the very opposite of God's laws of good, and that the reality of man's being was necessarily health and holiness. Seeing the ultimate nothingness of disease and sin, she readily healed them. As she explained her discovery to others, they saw the surety of the underlying goodness of God's creation. And as they grasped divine Principle, they too could heal.
In this way primitive Christianity spread and was "reinstated." Mrs. Eddy's object was to share this Science so that it would heal the world's sins and sorrows. Her pure motive gradually took form and shaped The Church of Christ, Scientist, as we now perceive it.
Every facet of this Church is based on Jesus' "word and works." The spiritual laws underlying his activity are the same laws that are present and operating in the practice of the Christ Science today. Each Christian Science treatment helps to usher in basic, or primitive, Christianity. Everyone can share in this ushering, whether or not one is "officially" an usher in a branch church.
How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord:
my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. . . .
Blessed are they that dwell in thy house:
they will be still praising thee. . . .
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee.
Psalms 84:1, 2, 4, 5
