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Church Alive

No Doubt About It, Church Is Alive! 

 . . . at least, judging from the numerous inspiring letters and articles the Journal receives every day from individuals all over the world. For example, Puneet Sharma, of India, whose Christian Science Society held one of the many Church Alive Summits inspired by the theme of this year’s Annual Meeting of The Mother Church.  

Turn the page, and you’ll find thought-provoking excerpts from a session at the recentBoston Summit called “Services that Heal: Inspired Reading and Listening,” given by the Readers of The Mother Church. 

Following that are articles—Church in Action—from Puneet and others who are truly witnesses to a revitalized, and yes—alive Church. 

'I like to think we're "being church"'

From the September 2011 issue of The Christian Science Journal


A few years back, I was praying about my Christian Science healing practice. At the time, my practice was largely made up of Christian Scientists, and I really wanted a new frontier, one where I was reaching more of the public. This led me to the inner city of my hometown of St. Louis. I approached a couple of fellow Christian Scientists, and we talked about the possibility of starting a church there, and thought that maybe we could try something new. 

Somewhere in my heart I was yearning for, I guess most of all, simplicity. My branch church experience had always included long business and committee meetings, and it often occurred to me, “If everyone would devote this much time to healing and to prayer, think what our movement would be like—if it were just simpler, if there weren’t so much infrastructure and so much stuff to do.” I certainly was not opposed to serving church, but I just wanted to peel away the add-ons that maybe weren’t necessary. 

So I began to study the Church Manual. And I made three lists. One was for the requirements the Manual specifies that are only for The Mother Church. One was for the requirements for branch churches. And on the third, I listed the things we were doing that we thought of as requirements—some of which weren’t even mentioned in the Manual, but that we’d just been doing because of tradition or the way we’d always done it. 

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More In This Issue / September 2011

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