It Was My First Meeting with a group of representatives of local Christian churches. As we were introducing ourselves and giving a brief explanation of our churches, I grappled with what to say. One woman described her church's efforts to educate others about racism. Another explained her church's activity as mainly focused on immediate community needs such as drop-in day care for children. Other church representatives spoke of their work with peace and justice issues.
It became clear to me how and why as a member of a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I would fit in with this group. Ours is a church, as stated in Mary Baker Eddy's Manual of The Mother Church "... designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Manual, p. 17. As a Christian church, it offers a focus on Christian healing as described in the Scriptures and in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures— a book written for all sincere seekers for Truth, a book that delineates the law of God.
At the end of the meeting, I continued to ask myself, How do Christian Scientists fit into the broad design of Christian fellowship? I took comfort in Scripture, knowing that "there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. . . . And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." I Cor. 12:4, 6.
