BORN OUT OF THE POTATO FIELDS OF LONG ISLAND just after World War II, Levittown, New York, became one of the first planned suburban communities of tract housing in the United States. With the establishment of the new town, Levittown's first "pioneers," many of them war veterans, decided to set up life out in the country—30 miles east of New York City.
Among these pioneers was a small group of Christian Scientists who wanted to start their own congregation in the new community. Initially, they met in each others' homes, then in a variety of more public spaces—a school, other churches, and store fronts—until finally they were able to purchase land and build a church.
It's probably fair to say that most people in Levittown didn't have a lot of money. So at the time the church was built, it was incredibly challenging for them to make ends meet. In recent decades, the number of members has steadily declined and the financial obligations have loomed larger than ever. A question that we as a church have had to address recently is how to manage our resources. Do we sell our church? Do we keep it and share some of the space to provide income in addition to Sunday donations?
At various times we held metaphysical meetings to refocus our attention on our readily available resources—not material objects or financial attainments, but spiritual ideas. We drew inspiration, for example, from Mrs. Eddy's statement from Science and Health, also on the wall at the front of our church: "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (p. 494). We affirmed Paul's declaration from the Bible, "I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality" (II Cor. 8:13, 14).
After praying with these inspiring words, we were led to actively consider renting a portion of our church building to other groups in town. Not only would this help us financially, it would also be a very tangible exercise in living the Love that meets all human needs. We would be able to better fulfill our purpose as a church—to reach out and meet the need of someone in our community.
We decided it made sense to share our Sunday School room. Because we were still going to use it on Sundays, we knew there would need to be mutual respect and appreciation on both sides for the shared environment. But how do you find a compatible group? Where should we begin?
After several attempts, we found ourselves needing to reaffirm that our true motive was to go beyound finding a tenant to share the costs. Witnessing evidence of divine Love meeting the human need for all in our community was what each and every member truly wanted.
Within a few months we became aware of an early childhood program, a Montessori school, that was in need of a new home. They'd been looking, but had found nothing. We invited them to take a look at the space we had. It was exactly right. Both parties soon signed an agreement, and by the start of the next school year, the school had moved in.
We are now a year and a half into sharing our space with the school and find it to be wonderful evidence that divine Love truly does meet "every human need." We are grateful that we have been able not only to keep our church building without feeling any burden, but also to bless some of the young people in our community. The new arrangement has given exposure to our church that has also been a blessing. There is a five-day-a-week flow of parents coming into our building in the morning and afternoon.
Although the increasing number of people coming through our doors hasn't at this point resulted in an increase in our membership, the freedom from having to spend a lot of time at meetings ruminating about finances has enabled us to maintain a steady metaphysical embrace of our community.
This expanded involvement with the community and our relationship to it has begun to yield tangible results. We realized that by welcoming the school into our church, we were, in a sense, welcoming in the community as a whole. We also realized the other side of the equation: There was no reason that our church should not be a welcome presence in the community.
We realized that there was no reason that our church should not be a welcome presence in the community.
So as a congregation, we returned to a goal that we had attempted several times. We had tried for years to sponsor a Christian Science lecture in our town library. But the library staff—and, in fact, we ourselves—had seen a Christian Science lecture simply as a "religious" event and therefore as religious proselytizing. Because we now saw our church as filling a need in the community, we thought again about what a Christian Science lecture really is. We were beginning to see it less as a talk promoting a particular religion and more as a presentation on spiritual healing—a topic of enormous interest to the general public. Our real motivation was to share with our neighbors a spiritual perspective on healing that was safe and effective. And the library would be the perfect place because it's where people in the community come for new information and fresh ideas.
Recently, when we applied again to hold a lecture in the public library, a library staff member asked why we didn't want to have the talk in our church. Rather than being drawn into a discussion on religion, we focused on how our church wished to share a spiritual perspective that would be of interest to many people in the community, regardless of their religion.
The library staff agreed that we could hold a lecture in their facility. On the first Saturday of December 2006, we held a successful talk there, with close to half those attending being individuals new to Christian Science—an accomplishment we had never come close to achieving. Newcomers took a number of Science and Healths as well as numerous other pieces of Christian Science literature. From the questions asked at the conclusion of the lecture, including several from those working in the medical field, it was clear that the ideas shared were being as welcomed into their consciousness as we had welcomed the community into our consciousness. The activity of sharing our church home with others in town has, in turn, more practically enabled us to be more "at home" in our community.
Truly, as Mrs. Eddy has written, "One infinite God, good, ... constitutes the brotherhood of man ..." (Science and Health, p. 340)—unites all of God's children in His love. Our congregation is grateful for the blessings resulting from each proof of that unity.
