Every three years, the Board of Education, an auxiliary to the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, holds a Normal class to train and authorize dedicated practitioners of Christian Science healing to take on the additional responsibility of teaching this healing practice to others. For the first time, the entire membership of The Mother Church was invited to prayerfully support this activity so fundamental to our Church and our Cause. We want to thank everyone who answered with their prayers. We are delighted to tell you that this had a noticeable effect in awakening thought to the role of the Normal class. A new group of teachers, full of devotion and unity of heart and spirit, has now completed the 2015 Normal class, which was held in early December.
Allison W. “Skip” Phinney, Jr., C.S.B., of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, taught the class. As a teen Skip heard life-changing Christian Science healings recounted in casual family conversation. But what he says most stirred him was the entirely new dimension of God’s actuality he sensed behind those healings. College, service in the United States Army, work in publishing, and his own growing family came along. In 1960, however, he was drawn to work at The Mother Church, and positions followed as Manager of Committees on Publication; Senior Manager of the Committee on Publication, Film and Broadcasting, and Production and Design departments, during which time he helped to write and produce the Bible Exhibit “A Light Unto My Path: Exploring the Bible in Sight and Sound”; Clerk; Editor of the Christian Science periodicals; President of the Board of Education; and in 2009–2010, he served a term as President of The Mother Church. He is currently serving as a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors. His earliest glimpses of spiritual reality have deepened, but still impel his vision of the role Christian Science will continue to play in freeing and lifting the hearts of humanity.
The 2015 Normal class consisted of students who will teach and strengthen the practice of Christian Science in 12 different countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States. Students in the United States came from California, Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.
