RESILIENT AND DYNAMIC—TWO WORDS I USE to describe our Christian Science branch church membership. But we might not have called it either one as little as four years ago, about the time we embarked on the construction of a new church building.
Don't get me wrong. Our little membership had good Readers, talented musicians, and a caring congregation. However, we occupied a structure built for 1,200 churchgoers and 1,000 Sunday School pupils. We could sit so far apart that we resembled scattered embers in a fire, so spread out that we came close to extinguishing the flame and purpose of our church.
Following an earthquake that resulted in massive damage to our 70-year-old building, decisions on how to proceed varied as widely as the membership. However, the definition of Church in Science and Health, which we recited at the end of every membership meeting, jolted us out of our passivity: "Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
