Do you expect to experience healing at Christian Science church services? An early writer for the Christian Science Sentinel tells us, “Mrs. Eddy once said to a student that she longed for the day to come when no one could enter a Christian Science church, no matter how sick or how sorrowing that one might be, without being healed, and that this day can come only when every member of the church studies and demonstrates the truth contained in the Lesson-Sermon, and takes with him to the service the consciousness thus prepared” (Florence C. Boyd, “Healing the Multitudes,” July 1, 1916). Following the example of Christ Jesus, who healed those who gathered around him wherever he preached, Mrs. Eddy herself demonstrated the power of the Word to heal (see Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, pp. 119–122 and 149–151, for example).
Some years ago, as a newly elected First Reader, whose job it would be to conduct Sunday services and Wednesday testimony meetings in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I eagerly prepared readings prior to the beginning of my term. The goal was to have healing services as Mrs. Eddy had expected. Interestingly, shortly after the election, the clerk of that branch church sent a letter to members asking them to pray for, and expect, healing at both the Sunday services and the Wednesday testimony meetings.
The congregation witnessed this woman arriving in considerable discomfort and leaving with complete freedom an hour later.
