The power of authenticity

Have you ever stopped to think about the Christian Science Sunday School and why it is so important? In my position of Sunday School Support Lead for the Church Activities Department of The Mother Church in Boston, Massachusetts, I think about this a lot. 

I regularly meet with individual branch Churches of Christ, Scientist, and in almost every meeting about Sunday School, I have asked, “What is a Christian Science Sunday School, really?” During these meetings, people have shared a wide spectrum of wonderful ideas. I might summarize their answers this way: A Christian Science Sunday School preaches the gospel with authenticity. In other words, students learn the Scriptures, including the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Sermon on the Mount (see Mary Baker Eddy, Church Manual, pp. 62–63), not like a subject in school, but like a melody that reaches the heart. Sunday School for both the teacher and students is about discovering the good news (the gospel) from the Scriptures and singing it with our lives.

From my own Sunday School teaching experience, I have to admit that I haven’t always focused on preaching the gospel with authenticity like this. “Teaching” the Bible to the students was more the basis of my teaching. I knew the importance of the Scriptures and I believed their truth, but perhaps I didn’t fully understand the significance of my role in bringing the Word to life through my thoughts, my words, and my actions. Looking back, I see that at times this resulted in approaching my role in Sunday School academically instead of allowing my teaching to be a result of my active exercise of the gospel. 

What’s needed is a deep desire to live the gospel and an openness to sharing it. 

Mary Baker Eddy, who established The Church of Christ, Scientist, writes, “The best sermon ever preached is Truth practised and demonstrated by the destruction of sin, sickness, and death” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 201). She also writes in the same book: “School-examinations are one-sided; it is not so much academic education, as a moral and spiritual culture, which lifts one higher. The pure and uplifting thoughts of the teacher, constantly imparted to pupils, will reach higher than the heavens of astronomy; . . .” (p. 235).

We all may question at times if our own experience with practicing Jesus’ teachings is good enough to bring this gospel to light as a Sunday School teacher. But a sense of not yet having achieved perfection shouldn’t prevent us from expressing what we do understand. Note that, referring to the “least commandments,” Christ Jesus says, “Whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). He doesn’t say, “Whosoever shall reach the pinnacle of Christian Science and then teach others, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” 

What’s needed is a deep desire to live the gospel and an openness to sharing it both in Sunday School and in the community. Our communities need Christian Science Sunday School teachers. Why? Because this gospel will help people overcome limitations and find healing. Many in every community are yearning for freedom from limitations and inharmony, and we can each help point the path to this freedom. 

To do this, teachers can start right where they are, listen deeply, and share honestly what they have seen and experienced. I have learned that kids and teens appreciate when people are real and honest. As Science and Health affirms, “Honesty is spiritual power” (p. 453), and young people notice honesty right away; they value it and value the source of it. 

I once was a member of a church that had a teen who left Sunday School because she felt the classes weren’t authentic. She said she was tired of “just learning the Ten Commandments” and felt she was being told how to think. I showed interest in her feedback. I listened. I spent time with her and her family outside of church. She eventually came back to Sunday School, and we had many productive conversations. 

I loved her honesty and her sincere desire to find the real story about God. I told her that I wasn’t sure I would know how to explain everything, but I would love to discover the answers with her. She asked very hard, but thoughtful questions. Even if I had no idea how to answer them, striving to be honest and being directed by God kept us learning together from our Pastor—the Bible and Science and Health—and unfolded some wonderful Sunday School classes that I could never have designed in any academic way. 

For example, when she asked, “How do I know when it is God speaking and not something else?” we started talking about the story of Moses in a new way. We noticed Moses’ willingness to stop and investigate the burning bush. We related this to our own willingness to stop and investigate whether an idea was from God. This led to more questions, and it gave both of us the opportunity to slow down and discover what God was saying. This student continued to come to Sunday School to investigate and learn more about God.

In my experience, students value a teacher’s authenticity way more than they appreciate a teacher’s long history of teaching, degree in education, or particular religious credential. When teachers share what they have learned as practicing Christian Scientists and what they are still discovering, it’s appealing. 

Being original in helping students recognize their own natural ability to hear God’s voice is deeply inspiring. And finding graceful ways to indicate that students are intelligent thinkers and capable healers shows that trust in them is genuine and real. The authentic Christianity impelled by the Golden Rule—to treat others the way you want to be treated—is attractive to youth. It may be expressed in different ways, but it causes students to catch the spirit of the gospel, and that sticks with them. 

I still vividly remember a lesson one of my first teachers taught. It was so simple. She had me trace the edge of a circular table in Sunday School while she talked about how God doesn’t have a beginning or an ending. She explained how God’s love for me is like this, too. It doesn’t have a beginning or an ending, it’s always present, and it’s always active. 

The teacher’s clear love of God made such an impression on me that it stuck in my mind.

This simple little illustration has stayed with me my entire life. It has come to me a few different times and helped free me from a number of personal challenges. Some may think this illustration is a bit lackluster, but the teacher’s clear love of the ever-presence and eternal nature of Life, God—and her deep level of experience with it—made such an impression on me that it stuck in my mind.

Preaching the gospel with authenticity means that a teacher is not trying to put on a show or teach the content of the Bible or Science and Health from a scholarly standpoint. The Sunday School teacher is authentically loving the students and practicing what Jesus taught. Drawing from their own experience and practice of Christian Science, members of branch churches have the natural ability to have a genuine impact both on students and on the community.

To me, these lines from Mrs. Eddy’s “Communion Hymn” speak to teaching Sunday School authentically: