FOR SOME TIME, YOUTH VANDALISM HAD PLAGUED our Christian Science branch church on the northeast side of London. In fact, the whole street suffered from this sort of vandalism in one form or another. Young people congregating in the street would break windows and doors repeatedly and write unpleasant graffition on our building. Gangs of boys climbed the drainpipes and rode their bicycles on the flat roof. Others in our neighborhood informed us that drug dealing even took place under the canopy of our church porch.
From the very beginning of these incidents, our congregation prayed to see a solution. As students of Christian Science, we knew that the correct identity of all people is their spiritual identity, since that's what God created. And because each individual is God-created, each is also purely good. As Mary Baker Eddy explained this concept in her book Unity of Good, "The divine children are born of law and order, and Truth knows only such" (p. 23).
Not that we were pretending to be unaware of destructive behavior. Rather, we knew that destructive behavior is not natural to anyone because we are all God's children. We realized that in order for the behavior to stop, we would need to see this spiritual fact. We also asked for prayer from a Christian Science practitioner, who supported us in our efforts to see these, and all young people, as the beloved children of God, who, because of their innate spiritual goodness, could not really want to do harm.
Opportunities quickly came for us to live our prayers—to see the spiritual facts right in the face of destructive behavior. For instance, one day I caught a group of young men testing the strength of an already-loosened drain pipe on the side of our church building to climb on the roof. I went over to them and firmly asked them to stop. As I was talking, one of them accused me of not listening to him. But they moved away from the church to the other side of the street. Because I saw this frustrated comment as an opportunity to start talking to them, I crossed the road and approached them. I assured the one boy that I was in fact listening to him. A conversation followed, which ended in some jokes and a much-improved feeling of communication.
However, things still had a ways to go before we saw a turnaround. For example, on one occasion, a crowd of young men came into the Reading Room, asking questions of our librarian in a rather disrespectful way. When they left, the librarian discovered her wallet was missing. However, instead of reacting to the loss with fear or anger, she prayed to reflect Christly love, and put a notice in the Reading Room window that said: "God is Love. You are all His children, and He loves you."
Although the boys did not return her wallet, her loving note seemed to be a step of progress, because after this response of forgiveness and outreaching love, another group of young people—part of this overall large gang of youths who filled the neighborhood—started to come into the Reading Room on Wednesday evenings, in a genuine wish to ask questions and communicate.
As we continued praying, we came to the conclusion that much of the young people's bad behavior was simply misdirected energy. They wanted to get attention because they needed someone to care about them. There was the time when four boys—around eleven years of age and possible "hangers-on" to the older youths—came into the Reading Room when I was working there. They were joking and making remarks that were intended to shock me.
When they realized I was not shocked but instead answered them cheerfully and positively, they decided that they wanted to sit down at a table and draw some posters to add to the display on our Sunday School wall. Later, while the boys were still there, members of our congregation not only praised them for their efforts and put the posters on the wall, but also recognized their good qualities that before might have been masked by otherwise rough behavior.
Not that we were pretending to be unaware of destructive behavior. Rather, we knew that destructive behavior is not natural to anyone because we are all God's children.
Many of our members probably would have considered the young individuals' behavior outrageous, but because we were praying to see the innate spiritual goodness of all those involved, we were able to remain calm, and silently and outwardly express love and friendship toward them.
Over the next few months, whenever older girls and boys who came to the Reading Room behaved in a rowdy and disorganized way, members prayed to see these young people's spiritually derived, innate goodness. And this goodness shone through. For example, one young man from the group of neighborhood youths was sitting in one of our services and kindly moved to a different place when he was informed that a disabled member of our congregation needed that particular seat.
One Wednesday evening, a teenage girl who had before attended part of a testimony meeting brought two of her friends with her, and they stayed for the whole service. The First Reader's calm and humble certainty that the God-given message in the readings and hymns must meet all needs in the congregation supported a healing atmosphere. These thoughts helped because during the service, several of the neighborhood's rough young men came in, slightly disturbing service by asking the girls to come outside with them. The girls declined, and during the testimony period, two of the girls asked searching, heartfelt questions, which the Reader and members of the congregation answered with love.
After the service ended, we said we would pray for the mother of one of the girls who was suffering from cancer. Meetings with the girls thereafter brought news of progress, and were always friendly and warm.
Our own experience of youth crime, and our recognition that this issue is a major problem in many parts of the world, led us to sponser a Christian Science lecture last year titled "Safety, Unity, Peace in our Community." In her talk, the speaker addressed the issues of how prayer could bring peace to our streets and to our individual lives, and freedom from fear. Our church's support of the outreaching message of the lecture led us to make several excellent contacts with organizations in the borough that are working to free young people from the attraction to a life of crime.
These contacts included neighbors on our road and the "neighborhood watch" team. In fact, the watch team asked if they could hold meetings in our church building. These meetings have continued, building up friendship and mutual appreciation. We communicated with local residents and the police about our planned security measures, and they enthusiastically supported what we were doing.
We had, in fact, already planned renovations to our church before the vandalism began, so we incorporated the security measures into the renovation work. The neighbors therefore felt assured to see that our renovation work now also included security features. We kept in touch with them at every stage up to its completion. As members, we saw this development as an example of "all things work[ing] together for good," as the Bible says (Rom. 8:28). Not only were we in need of renovating our building, but we could now see that these renovations were going to bless our road, helping to keep everyone safer.
We are now happy to report that the vandalism to our church and the rest of the road has completely ended. Our congregation attributes these results to the power of prayer for the community. Occasionally, even some of our neighbors have hinted that prayer played a part in this transformation.
But we believe that the recent healing in the neighborhood is only the beginning. Just because the neighborhood is safer does not mean that we have stopped praying for the well-being of the youths. We continue to pray for them because we know that they need and deserve the best help one can offer. As we have done this, our prayers have broadened to include all young people, to see them as the children of God.
