The following is an edited and abridged transcript of the “An able church—When we feel the Christ-power in church, it extends to embrace the world” session held in The Mother Church Extension, hosted by Dilshad Khambatta Eames, CS, and Ned Eames on June 2, 2019, the Sunday before Annual Meeting. It was also broadcast live online, and you can watch the complete replay at christianscience.com/able-church.
Dilshad Khambatta Eames: Welcome to this afternoon’s gathering, “An able church.” My name is Dilshad Khambatta Eames, and I’m here with my husband, Ned. Whether you are participating online or right here with us in Boston, we’re all together. Welcome home to church.
Ned Eames: We’re all fellow members. Be it of an informal group, a society, or a branch church. We’ve come together to deepen our love for church—to explore the spiritual idea and value of Church, how Church can support each of us, change us, and transform our lives.
Dil, some time ago you told me how you first learned about Christian Science in India, when the Mumbai branch church asked you to sing.
Dilshad: That’s right. I was not a Christian Scientist at the time, but I felt the warmth of the members of that branch church. And about a year later, while working in Hong Kong and occasionally singing for the branch church there, I felt that same inclusion and trust from its members. Before the church services, the Readers and I would pray the “Daily Prayer” together. I felt a warm uplift that something holier, larger than myself, was gathering us together, especially when we read, “… and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!” (Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church, p. 41).
This spiritual affection impelled by the Christ was palpable. The members there saw me as God’s perfect child, and I could feel it. They let me into their lives. They let their light shine and lit me up. And it didn’t stop there, because to some degree, I was taking this light out into my work community. This light was freeing me, strengthening me, and enabling me to overcome barriers of language, culture, race—and physical challenges, which were many at the time. Church was becoming home to me, home in the truest sense of the word: the consciousness of God. And Ned, I know you had some very special experiences with branch churches in your young adult years.
Ned: I think the loving encouragement of branch church members in my college town saved my college career as a student athlete. Having grown up here in New England, I ventured out to the West Coast for college, following a dream to play collegiate tennis in California. I had attended a Christian Science Sunday School until I was around ten or eleven, but since then my family hadn’t practiced Christian Science. There was also a lot of change and profound upheaval in my family at that time. So off I went to California.
My first year started to go pretty well on the court and in the classroom. Then suddenly, it wasn’t going well, and I found myself quite ill and stuck in my dorm room for a number of weeks. Everything seemed to be at risk, and I was pretty close to having to drop out. I had the name of a Christian Science practitioner, but hadn’t had an interest in calling until now. Faced with illness, I called, and I was healed within two or three days. I was back on the court and in the classroom. It became clear at that time that I needed to start to “own” Christian Science, not just lean on it in bad times. I joined the local branch church, a community of healers who became moral compasses and role models for me.
About a year later, my tennis game just started to fall apart, and my attitude was terrible. I felt like quitting tennis and maybe Christian Science. The thought came to me, “You can quit, but go one more time to the Reading Room first.” I went and slouched down in a chair thinking nothing was going to happen. But in front of me was an issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, and the title on the cover said, “What’s the motive?” I picked it up and read the article two or three times. I realized life had become all about Ned and all about winning tennis matches. But this article gave me a new approach: focusing on expressing the qualities of God and making that the number one and only goal. I began to work at it every match, every day, every week. Everything I had known about my strokes, about my ability to compete or concentrate, how I thought of my opponents, changed. Everything was new, and I felt free and able to continue with tennis, school, and Christian Science. And I was grateful for those loving church members who encouraged me each step of the way.
Dilshad: It is the Christ that calls us all to serve church, and as we yield to this calling, we see how church supports us. We are one family, and this one family makes me think about Jesus saying, “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?” (Matthew 12:48). He answered by stretching out his hands to his followers and saying that all who do the will of God are his family. We are all living stones in the building of church, building, loving, growing, giving, receiving, and thereby strengthening the collective body of church. And in this way we could say that church “affords proof of its utility” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583).
Ned: Each of us has such an important and unique role in supporting the growth of each other in our churches. And we also want to think about how we can be there for our brothers and sisters in the larger community who are seeking health and goodness.
Over the last few months we’ve enjoyed getting to know Fabián Smara, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher from El Bolsón, Argentina.
Dilshad: Fabián expresses his gratitude for Christian Science by working for church. He’s written articles and testimonies, participated in radio programs, taught online Sunday School, and served in different offices, such as the Communications Coordinator for Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. In 2014, he facilitated practitioner roundtables in South America and was especially inspired to see how the Christ continues to guide every honest seeker of truth today. Welcome, Fabián.
Church was becoming home to me, home in the truest sense of the word: the consciousness of God.
Fabián Smara: Thank you. Bienvenida querida familia de la iglesia. Welcome home dear church family. Humanity is seeking true and permanent comfort. Christ Jesus promised a Comforter that would stay with us forever. As Christian Scientists, we accept this prophecy as fulfilled by the discovery of divine Science by Mary Baker Eddy. We confirm this because we are experiencing the healing effect of Christian Science in all sorts of situations, and we read about it every day in our periodicals.
Feeling this comfort comes through a better understanding of the true nature of God, ever-present and eternal good. Our healing ministry as members of the same family under God’s guidance is attractive and cohesive. The deeper idea of Church that Mrs. Eddy perceived could not be expressed by an organization founded on personalities and hierarchies. She found in God the inspiration to establish a visible and enduring new structure, which could support individual and collective Christian healing ministry. We are answering the call to develop a better understanding and demonstration of this spiritual sense of Church that is able to bring true comfort to humanity.
I found it interesting to think about Christ Jesus’ words, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:1, 2). My grandfather was an Italian immigrant in Argentina. He took care of plants, discerning the branches that did not bear fruit and cutting them off, so as not to waste nutrients for the rest of the plant. He selected those that bore little fruit and pruned them, thus helping more fruit to grow. This is the image represented by Christ Jesus’ words. When Jesus tells his listeners that he is the vine, he makes a point of telling them who owns and is in charge of the vine and the vineyard—his Father, God.
We have to be clear that the Church of Christ, Scientist, is intended to be an organization that expresses Christ and is owned by God, not by personalities. Sometimes we could be tempted to claim more authority than others. But what we need most in our church work is unselfishness, humility, and meekness. Like each needed part of the vine, each church member has a part to play for the benefit of the whole, to bless and to be blessed. If we are tempted to criticize or control what others are doing, the vine can start to feel debilitated, and soon we’ll see little or no good fruit at all. As Christian Scientists, we have to be willing to let the Christ-idea prune our thinking from unfruitful thoughts.
We have to stand in this certainty of what our Church Manual says: “In Science, divine Love alone governs man;…” (p. 40). Thus, we can rest in the certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ or deprive us of participating in the collective demonstration of this structure of Truth and Love. Our expectation from this cultivation made through the Christ is renovation and resurrection, offering new opportunities to bear fruit by working together.
Dilshad: Thank you, Fabián.
Ned: We’d now like to introduce you to two individuals who have been busy this year visiting churches all over the United States: Keith Wommack, CSB, the outgoing President of The Mother Church, and Ariana Herlinger, CS, Manager of the Church Activities Department at The Mother Church.
Ariana Herlinger: It’s been wonderful having members of so many branch churches and societies from different states coming together and sharing with each other all the various things they’re doing in their communities, sharing how they’re praying about things that come up in their churches and really helping to inspire each other.
Keith Wommack: It’s been a privilege to speak with these members and to hear and feel the Christ together—wonderful to see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost active in these churches. And, while meeting with members, we found the secret to church.
Ariana: It’s love.
Keith: That’s it, pure and simple. I wrote this little note this morning: “Love builds, Love maintains.” This divine maintenance plan appears to us as healing restoration and reformation. Love heals us and enables us to heal others. That’s church. That’s the Church of Christ, Scientist. That’s love. That’s enough.
In Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy by Irving Tomlinson, we read that Mrs. Eddy in her last class of 1898 asked this question: “What is the best way to bring about an instantaneous healing?” Tomlinson wrote, “There were many answers, but when they had finished, she said that it is to love, to be love and to live love. There is nothing but Love.” Then he recalls that Mrs. Eddy further said, “Love is the secret of all healing, the love which forgets self and dwells in the secret place, in the realm of the real” (Amplified Edition, p. 104).
Mrs. Eddy also wrote to a Reader in a branch church: “The little that I have accomplished has all been done through love,—self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 247). During our meetings with members, we also found that the little we accomplished was all “done through love,—self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness.” We found that the secret to church is to love, to be love, to live love—there is nothing but Love.
Ariana: We really enjoyed hearing all of the stories that were shared, the fruitage, and people’s prayers for church. It was so clear that church members have such a deep sense of love for their fellow man within their communities and in the world, and a commitment to being in service to humanity.
Keith: It is important that we understand that church and community are one. Evil suggests that church and community are separate and therefore desperate—that one is losing its members, while the other is losing its divine influence. But that’s impossible because both are dynamic, divine ideas. The church is in the community, and the community is in the church, and both are in and belong to divine Mind. So we never really leave church in order to reach out to others, because we are at one. Similarly, if society feels disconnected from or unloved by church, perhaps we’re not sufficiently understanding that we can’t be disconnected from the infinite, and we can’t be unloved by the All-loving.
Ariana: And we really did see this in action. So often we would show up to these meetings, and we would hear from members that they’re already seeing an increase in people coming through their doors, and attending their services. We received a lot of emails afterwards telling of newcomers coming in and people who had left church years ago coming back. This is the collective demonstration of all of our prayers, not only for our own churches but for the entire Church community worldwide. We’re so grateful to all of you for those prayers. They’re so needed and felt.
Before one meeting we were standing outside the church greeting people as they came in, and a young woman said, “This is my first time in a Christian Science church. I’ve been walking past this church for two years, always wanting to go in. I saw these people entering tonight, and there was such a sense of love coming from them that I just decided that tonight was the night. So here I am.” So we welcomed her into the meeting, and we explained a little bit about what it was about so she knew what to expect. She even shared during the meeting as well, and when she left, I was so grateful to see a church member head out with her to share some ideas and Christian Science periodicals with her.
At another meeting a young man stood up and said, “I hope you all understand the importance of the work of your Reading Rooms. I walked into a Reading Room for the first time a couple of years ago knowing nothing about Christian Science, and I can’t tell you the impact that Christian Science has had on my life. I was so grateful to have that Reading Room to walk into and to find out about Christian Science.”
Embracing our fellow man starts with a deep sense of love for our fellow church members. When we do truly feel that support of each other, that’s when we’re able to effectively embrace the world.
Keith: That’s when things happen. We can support everyone’s ability to be loved by God. I once heard the phrase “Church discord is immaturity.” There can be dissent without dissension and harmony without agreement. And believe it or not, there can be affectionate disagreement. In Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, Mrs. Eddy is quoted as saying, “… you must love especially the brethren. You must meet with them, cheer them, in their labors, point the way of love to them and show them it by loving first, and waiting patiently for them to be in this great step by your side, loving each other and walking together.” Mrs. Eddy ended by stating, “This is what the world must see before we can convince the world of the truths of Christian Science” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, p. 166).
In every meeting church members were actively countering the idea that church is in decline—not just referring to their own church experiences, but most importantly taking a stand for the world’s ability to be fed by God and church. Members are leaving desperation behind, and the mesmerism is breaking. Why is this? Because God is not desperate, and as God’s image and likeness, you are not desperate. Who is it that’s desperate? Mortal mind, evil, because it has no hope. You are demonstrating Christian Science, and Christian Science is proving that evil is nothing. And where’s the best place to demonstrate and learn Christian Science? Church. It’s that simple.
The secret to church is to love, to be love, to live love. There is nothing but Love. That’s church.
Ariana: This story was sent to us from Montana: “Several years ago, I was standing alone in our local branch church, looking around and thinking, ‘This church is dying.’ Our membership was dwindling. People were moving or just not coming to church much anymore. As I stood there, I knew I had a decision to make. I was either going to give up or fight. Two thoughts came to me: ‘I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord’ (Psalms 118:17), and the phrase, ‘Not on my watch.’
“I realized there needed to be a major shift in my thought about church. Over the years I have prayed for church, but maybe not as consistently as I should have. So I got busy. I started praying every day and working specifically about many different aspects of church. I have received many wonderful revelations about what church is not and what church is.
“One word that really got my attention was complacency. I thought it meant something like being comfortable with what is happening, but I decided to look it up. One definition I found was, ‘a feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to make them better.’ And the synonyms for complacency were ‘conceitedness,’ ‘self-admiration,’ ‘self-absorption,’ ‘self-satisfaction,’ ‘self-importance,’ and a lot more that started with ‘self.’
“I began to work at living the First Commandment, to be in total obedience to Life, Truth, and Love. I started asking God to teach me, lead me, guide me, and use me. As I began to see progress in my own thought, I started letting go of habits that were not productive, seeing fresh new ways of doing things, and being willing to do things that were totally new. I began to see true Church as Love’s pure action. One of these moments of clarity brought about a physical healing.
“I was First Reader in my branch church, and on the way to the service, I was considering how to attract people to church. These thoughts were not coming from God, but from self: ‘Am I doing things correctly? What can I be doing better?’ At the time I was dealing with some stomach issues. I got to church and proceeded with the service. Right afterward, when a ‘self-thought’ came to me, I instead got this clear message from God: ‘This is My church. I’m responsible for it, not you. I’m the Worker, and you are the works. I’m bringing My children to Christian Science, and you are here to serve Me.’ I realized I had been holding on to a sense of false responsibility for church. So I let it go and felt completely free both mentally and physically. I continued to pray to see Church as a spiritual, pure, genuine, harmonious idea that includes all right ideas and contains nothing underived from God, Love. God maintains the whole of Church.
“This year our church group is being given opportunities to be more active in our community. We are seeing more activity in our Reading Room and church services, and we are witnessing healing activity in so many different ways. Christian Science is attractive, and seekers are attracted to it.”
Keith: As you can see, we’re seeing church members taking a stand and affirming that church is complete. Anytime there’s a suggestion that something is missing in church—whether it’s newcomers, younger folks, money, harmony—church members are taking a stand against that. They are recognizing that Christ reveals the fullness of being—and that in every church service, Sunday School, and Reading Room the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are present and active.
We’re also seeing that church members are a lot more aware of the decoys that would divide us. They’re not wandering into the weeds, so to speak, diagnosing church, or believing that just one idea is going to save everything—with each member feeling he or she has the answer. I’ve found “A Rule for Motives and Acts” from the Manual very helpful. We read in part that, “Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church” (p. 40). Are we personally attached to an idea or perspective? Our motives must be selfless in order to experience real Church. Selflessness leads to inspired actions and keeps us and protects us from simply going through the motions of church.
Ariana: In one meeting a man stood up and said that in the past year their church was working on the logistics of an upcoming lecture. And in their first meeting somebody pointed out that they host a lecture every year at the same time, kind of in the same way, like they were just going through the motions. So before they went further, the church members decided to take some time to really focus on the purpose and power of this activity—to support it metaphysically, so that it felt inspired going forward. And they were led in a completely different direction. Instead of doing just one lecture, they were led to do two within a couple of weeks of each other, so that if people came to the first one and were really excited, there was a second one they could connect with. Another idea that came out of the prayerful support of the lecture was to have monthly viewing events in their Reading Room, invite their community, and connect them with some of the online resources on Christian Science provided by the Church.
A society in a remote town in the United States shared how they had been praying to support all of their activities of church and to gain a more expansive sense of what was possible. At the time they only offered testimony meetings once a month, but soon they realized that they did have the people necessary to have weekly testimony meetings. The society didn’t have a practitioner, but everyone was praying to support the practice of all the members. Two members ended up going into the full-time practice. The society also maintained a Reading Room, but it wasn’t staffed regularly. One member was led to volunteer to be in the Reading Room one day a week. That inspired some of the other members, and soon their Reading Room, which hadn’t been open regularly, was open five days a week.
Keith: As members expressed concerns—about translations of the Bible, reading the Bible Lesson-Sermon from the Full-Text printout or the books during services, or whether the sign on the street read “Society” or “Church”—they were sure that these issues did not determine the healing activity that would attract people to their church. What is most vital is that each member genuinely expresses spiritual affection. It is Christian love behind each church activity that brings healing and makes church grow. The unity and bonds of love expressed by church members outweigh any fading wedges of personal sense that would attempt to divide and discourage them. When self is subdued, the beautiful healing melodies of Soul and Love are heard throughout the church. And remember, the little that we accomplish is all done through love—self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness—because the secret to church is to love, to be love, to live love. There is nothing but Love. That’s church.
Dilshad: Thank you, Ariana and Keith, for the many meetings you’ve facilitated this last year and for your encouraging love. Church gives us a place where we can mutually aid one another. And we have what we need. We are able because we are led by the Christ.
So how is Christ calling us to serve church? What does it feel like to answer this call? And how does answering this call to serve heal ourselves and the world? We posed these questions to a group of our fellow members, each of whom has a deep, burning desire to be led by the Christ, and who serve church uniquely in their own ways.
At this point in the discussion, 12 speakers participated by video to share thoughts on what it means to them to feel the Christ calling them to serve church and how this brings healing to themselves, the church, and the world.
Dilshad: Our next speaker is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher from Bamberg, Germany—Doris Ulich. Doris loves and lives church. She’s a transparency for the fresh, new Christ-idea guiding her every step of the way. She actively contributes to making this universal divine Science more available and palpable to the world. I’ve been talking to Doris quite a bit lately, and she believes that church can be anywhere—including, of course, in church. But in the video you will see her speaking to us from a forest close to her home in southern Germany. Let’s experience church with Doris.
We are able because we are led by the Christ.
Doris Ulich: “Come on, get up. Church is always worth going to.” That’s what my mom said to me, a tired and unmotivated teenager, at 8:00 on Sunday mornings. Sitting in the car for a one-hour drive to church, and with no mobile device, I had a lot of time to think about why “church is always worth going to.” Well, where else other than in this branch Church of Christ, Scientist, would I be welcomed with all my tough questions about my life, about what I saw happening in the world, and about what I was learning about Christian Science? Where else other than in this church would members regard me as they saw themselves—all of us as honest seekers for Truth? They wouldn’t know all the answers, but together we discovered them.
As an adult, I moved to a city where again, there was no local branch church, and again, I had an hour drive to get there. At some point this church disbanded. This gave me a lot to think about. I wondered, If church is always worth going to, why would it close?
The answer that came to me was, “There is no closing. Stay in your city and share the blessing of church.” Mary Baker Eddy describes the Bible Lesson read in The Mother Church and its branch churches as “a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends” (Manual, p. 31). My conclusion was that if the Bible Lesson helps the prosperity of Christian Science as a whole, then this will bless everyone in my city, including me, wherever it is read.
I started offering a place to study the Bible Lesson together. I invited all the people I knew who might be interested. Some said they loved my invitation emails, and that was sufficient. Others said they were busy at the time. And a few people attended more or less regularly. There were times when I would be sitting there by myself but not “alone.” I was reading aloud the Lessons of each week, not for myself, but for my community, and I would get ideas, solutions, and insights, and I would write them down. And I’d see my list and think, “Church is always worth going to. It blesses me just as much as this offering to my community blesses them.” Would I always see the results of this blessing? Not necessarily, but I would feel a deep joy, gratitude, and strength.
The theme of this Annual Meeting focuses on that enabling expressed in my life by those who helped me to find the right answers and to bless others. We might look back sometime at this year’s Annual Meeting and see the progress of how we have been enabled to love each other more than we thought would be possible. With God all things are possible, and this enables us to move forward in our individual progress as well as in our progress as a movement.
Ned: Thank you, Doris. We’re so grateful for your pioneering, courageous, heartfelt, and loving commitment to church.
Dilshad: This passage from Mrs. Eddy’s work Retrospection and Introspection summarizes the spiritual affection we’ve all spoken about today—the affection referred to in the “Daily Prayer” earlier: “The spiritually minded meet on the stairs which lead up to spiritual love. This affection, so far from being personal worship, fulfils the law of Love which Paul enjoined upon the Galatians. This is the Mind ‘which was also in Christ Jesus,’ and knows no material limitations. It is the unity of good and bond of perfectness. This just affection serves to constitute the Mind-healer a wonder-worker,—as of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the disciples were of one accord” (p. 76).
The meeting ended with the singing of Hymn No. 601, “With One Accord in One Place,” from the Christian Science Hymnal: Hymns 430–603.
