I consider membership in The Mother Church to be my most valuable possession. As with many precious treasures, gaining membership for me involved sacrifice and work. For, in order to become a member, I needed to dissolve my membership in the church into which I was born. All of my relatives—indeed, almost everyone in the area where I lived—belonged to that church.
I loved that church (and still do). But after Christian Science revealed to me the true nature of God and man, I knew I must do everything I could to practice this great Science. Joining The Mother Church was an essential step in my spiritual growth.
When I wrote the church to which I then belonged, asking them to release me, three officers of the church came to my home. They told me I must attend a “court,” where they would try to convince me not to withdraw my membership. They did make it clear that if they could not convince me, they would grant my request. “However,” one said, with a grim look on his face, “if you do not attend the court, you will be excommunicated.”
