I once commented to a fellow church worker about how small our local Christian Science branch church was—we had five members. Before I finished speaking, she retorted, "We don't have a small church!" And that was the end of the conversation.
Her remarkable rebuke was right on target. In a very real sense we didn't have a small church. Our congregation was devout, filled with love and gratitude to God. Christian healing was taking place regularly. There was no sense of burden in our church work. We all loved working with one another. Our activity was a profitable, growing experience for all involved. We lacked nothing.
Church is not a mere physical structure or a tally of membership figures held up for all to see. Spiritually conceived, it is a divine idea expressing God's power and presence, and it defies any possible human measurement. Dwelling on the size of church—thinking of it in finite, material terms —is like trying to determine the dimensions of life, which is eternal. Real life, as the outcome of God, divine Life, has no beginning and no end; no up, no down; no here, no there. Life is everywhere, throughout God's infinite creation, and it's always good. Church, likewise, has no beginning, no end, no up, no down. It is not of the world, but of Spirit, and thus forever eludes any attempt to be quantified in a worldly way.
