The burgeoning quest for spirituality coinciding with humanity's crossing into a new millennium has led many thinkers to explore in depth the relationship between human progress and spiritual development. Over the past three years, some of these thought-leaders in medicine, theology, science, publishing, and related fields have been invited to talk with the employees of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston.
Such a dialogue has become part of a series of semimonthly gatherings of employees known as Mission Update Lunches. At these informal sessions, Church employees share information about the current expressions of the world's search for more of the spiritual dimension, and think together about how the mission of the Church is guiding their responses—individually and collectively—to that search. These bring-your-own-brown-bag lunches are held at noontime in the Sunday School building in Boston.
Each speaker brings a unique perspective on how people today are yearning for and finding a convergence of faith and practice, prayer and wellness, the divine order and human enterprise. The guests have included Frances Hesselbein, chairman of the board of governors of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management; physician and author Dr. Larry Dossey; Phyllis Tickle, a contributing religion editor of publisher's Weekly; US Congressman from Texas Lamar Smith, George Gallup, Jr.; and Dr. Herbert Benson, director of the Harvard Medical School symposiums on "Spirituality and Healing in Medicine."
