Many of our readers have responded to our invitation at the end of this column every month to tell us: "What works in your church?" We've gathered some recent responses, as well as excerpts from Web postings at TMC Youth and e-mails/letters to The Mother Church to share with you. OUR Branch Church Found that too much business meant too little time to spend on the "good of the church" at the end of each meeting. So we reversed the agenda, and now "For the Good of the Church" comes first! Wonderful sharing and discussions are the result, sometimes constituting the whole meeting!
We've found ways to move routine off the agenda (mostly by e-mailing them to members) so we can focus on our current theme of "inward nurture, outward embrace," accomplishing needed business harmoniously, including recent expansion of our Sunday School building and replacement of both our organ and HVAC systems. — E-mail to the Journal from Linda Bargmann, Creve Coeur, Missouri Thought YOU'D LIKE TO HEAR about our church meeting last night. I was substitute Reader and decided to do readings on the topic of "Freedom" to honor our country's Independence Day. We started the meeting with singing three verses of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" followed by readings from the Bible and Science and Health. We then sang Hymn No. 136, "I love thy way of freedom, Lord," and finished with "God Bless America" by lrving Berlin.
We used PowerPoint to project pictures on the wall as background for the order of service, the welcome, and so forth—beautiful pictures of the flag and bursting fireworks. (We use PowerPoint at all our services with seasonal pictures, flowers, etc.) The testimonies were overflowing and wonderful. People told of great healings, gratitude, thankfulness for our country, the Comforter, Mrs. Eddy, Christ Jesus, and Paul.
