FOR AT LEAST A DECADE, the Christian Science church in Joinville, Brazil, suffered from severe stagnation. At times, only one person attended the Sunday service. This situation greatly concerned our executive board (of which I was a member), as it did the few church members we had at the time. Finally, we decided to honestly examine ourselves, and to pray about this discouraging picture. As a result, the church underwent a 180-degree change.
Soon we began to see our prayers manifested in a very natural way. The head librarian of our Reading Room was inspired to expand it to include a space in our church, outside of the small salesroom, that was more conducive to welcoming visitors. All of the members recognized that this was the first answer to prayer.
Then, a regular visitor to our church—a Christian Scientist from another region of Brazil—confided to us that we were very cold to our visitors. She said that when she came to our services, no one ever talked to her. We were grateful for her honesty, and for that comment, which was something of a revelation to us. This woman was always her natural, warm self whenever she visited, and we realized that we needed to follow her example. We all had a great desire to share the redeeming and healing message of the Christ, and we decided, as a membership, to begin a study of the Church Manual and become more familiar with both the spirit and the letter of it. This brought a profound change in the way the members acted and led us to be more loving.
