What follows is an edited and abbreviated transcript of the 2024 Annual Meeting of The Mother Church, which took place June 3 in the Church Extension. The full replay is available in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish at christianscience.com/annualmeeting. The replay will be viewable until June 1, 2025.
To open Annual Meeting, Mary Alice Rose, current Chair of the Christian Science Board of Directors, welcomed the worldwide Church family attending in person and via the internet. Mary Alice acknowledged the Pastor Emeritus of The Mother Church, Mary Baker Eddy, then introduced the other officers: fellow Board members Rich Evans, Moji George, Scott Preller, and Keith Wommack; First and Second Readers Mimi Oka and Don Wallingford; Clerk Martha Moffett; Treasurer Lyon Osborn; and incoming President Lindsey Taylor, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher from Gloucestershire, England. She also thanked the outgoing President, Anne Melville.
After the singing of Hymn No. 58 from the Christian Science Hymnal, Lindsey read passages from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Silent prayer was followed by the Lord’s Prayer. Then Lindsey introduced the Clerk.
Psalms 68:20 (to ;)
Psalms 70:4
Matthew 4:17
Matthew 13:44 the
Mark 1:16–18, 21 (to ;), 23–27
John 8:12, 31 If, 32
John 15:1, 8, 11
Acts 8:1 2nd And, 5–8
I Thessalonians 1:2–5 (to ;)
III John 1:4
Science and Health 15:25–30
Science and Health 351:8
Science and Health 12:1–5, 10
Science and Health 136:1–2
Science and Health 35:20–25
Science and Health 26:14
Science and Health 331:11 The
Science and Health 242:9
Science and Health 38:24–25
Science and Health 328:30
Science and Health 21:9
Clerk’s report
Martha Moffett: The living Church that brings joy had its start in Mary Baker Eddy’s embrace of the world with her discovery of Christian Science healing, reinstating the teaching and healing of Christ Jesus in our age. Mrs. Eddy founded her Church so that this Christ-healing would be felt around the world. Here are some of the ways in which The Mother Church is extending this embrace of its members today.
Concord, the software program that allows you to search the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings, now includes Science and Health in four new languages—French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
The Board of Directors has been visiting Christian Science churches and societies around the world to join with members in seeing evidence that the power of God, divine Love, is already in their communities. Two Board members visited Havana, Cuba, this past spring and were deeply moved by the members’ love of Christian Science and their consecration to Church under exceedingly challenging circumstances.
The Mother Church has recently been providing resources to countries in Asia that the Board of Directors visited last year. We’ve created brochures, pamphlets, and cards in Japanese, the Indonesian language, and two native languages of the Philippines.
The refurbishing of The Mother Church Original and Extension is now complete. These beautiful buildings, which belong to the members, are not museums. They represent the living Church, which is built first in our hearts, our love of Christian Science and its demonstration, bringing healing to the world.
Mrs. Eddy states in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany: “The praiseworthy success of this church, and its united efforts to build an edifice in which to worship the infinite, sprang from the temples erected first in the hearts of its members—the unselfed love that builds without hands, eternal in the heaven of Spirit. God grant that this unity remain, and that you continue to build, rebuild, adorn, and fill these spiritual temples with grace, Truth, Life, and Love” (p. 195).
Martha introduced a video featuring Florida Makosso from Tchimbambouka, the Republic of the Congo. Florida said: “Every action I take, I should always put myself in the other person’s place. And in this way we can cherish the Christ-idea and extend our outreach to include all humanity” (see 00:32:03 in the Annual Meeting replay).
Next came a video giving an overview of the four Christian Science summits that were held last year in the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (see 00:35:14 in the Annual Meeting replay).
After the singing of Hymn No. 539 from the Christian Science Hymnal: Hymns 430–603, there were reports of healing. Laura Leigh Robinson from St. Louis, Missouri, said she developed a debilitating autoimmune disease after being exposed to high concentrations of black mold and carbon monoxide. Physicians told her that they could not help her and that she would never recover. But after attending a Christian Science church service and reading Science and Health, she was healed in four days. “I knew I had come into contact with the animating force of the universe,” she said, “and that was profound goodness and love—God.”
Lindsey introduced a video featuring David Taillefer from Pau, France. David said he had severely injured his thumb, which turned black. He explained how he prayed: “I understood that I was under God’s law, the law of constant harmony, and I felt really at peace. The next morning I woke up with a very normal and pink thumb.” One of the lessons David learned from this healing is the power of joy. “My only situation, my only state, is a spiritual state. I just can be joyful to recognize this. And my healings are quicker because I pray with joy” (see 00:55:45 in the Annual Meeting replay).
Lindsey introduced the Manager of the Committees on Publication, Kevin Ness.
Committee on Publication’s report
Kevin Ness: It can be challenging to see the impositions on the public in regard to Christian Science, which Committees on Publication address under the Church Manual. In this work, Committees and church members are prayerfully affirming what they know to be true about the Christ Science and our Church, and as a result are seeing proofs of physical, spiritual, and moral transformation as well as unconditional love expressed to each other and our neighbors.
Here are a few examples from this year. Committees continue to actively watch legislation worldwide that may impact our religious practice. They engage with government officials to make clear the need for space in law for the free and natural practice of Christian Science.
Around the world, our daily scans of various media find numerous mentions of Christian Science, indicating that it is very much in public thought. In Africa, Committees have offered corrective talks, radio and television interviews, and articles to help the public gain a clearer view of our Christianity. In Europe, Committees have shared remarks at interfaith conferences and published responses in print and online. Recently in Latin America, positive steps have been made with a popular online encyclopedia.
We’ve also seen an increase in public mentions of Mary Baker Eddy, which have offered opportunities to dispel false notions about her. And numerous positive mentions of Science and Health seen and heard online give evidence that the Christian Science textbook continues to be a shining light, leading receptive hearts to the Christ, Truth.
In a recent opportunity, we were approached by a professor of a university’s journalism class called “Bias Busters,” which wanted to address biases and stereotypes about Christian Science. Scott Shivers, the head of the Committee Office’s editorial team, will tell us more.
Speaking on video, Scott said the class worked with the Committee on Publication to create 100 questions and answers to clear up misconceptions. “Throughout this process, there has been a wonderful spirit of respect and appreciation as the students spoke with church members, visited the local branch and Reading Room, and attended a Christian Science lecture. We’ve enjoyed this corrective opportunity and look forward to the fruits of the class’s efforts” (see 01:06:47 in the Annual Meeting replay).
Lindsey introduced a preview of an upcoming video about the work of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship and the lecturers’ gratitude to branches for their part in the lecture work (see 01:11:18 in the Annual Meeting replay).
Next, Liz Wallingford from Chesterfield, Missouri, shared her healing of injuries after being thrown from a horse. “In the Church Manual Mary Baker Eddy uses the phrase ‘quickly and wholly’ in describing the healing power of Christian Science (p. 92). The idea that quick and complete healing was possible was just galvanizing to me.” With prayerful help from a Christian Science practitioner, Liz realized that as a spiritual idea of God, she could never fall out of God’s care. A complete healing soon followed.
Lindsey introduced a video of Joy Rae-Hughes from Dee Why, New South Wales, Australia. “A few years ago, I found a blemish on the back of my shoulder, and it didn’t look good,” Joy said. “I wondered whether to see a doctor, but I finally decided to get serious and pray about it in Christian Science. I realized it didn’t matter what I thought I knew about me. It was what God knew about me that was true.” Soon afterward the blemish disappeared (see 01:21:00 in the Annual Meeting replay).
After the singing of Hymn No. 460, there was a video featuring members of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Adelaide, Australia. “We took a step back and looked at what church was really all about and what we needed to introduce Christian Science to the community,” they explained. “When the time was right and we were more confident in our understanding of what the Reading Room had to offer the community, God picked us up and moved us. The Reading Room is now located in the city’s central business district, and it’s a good outreach for the church” (see 01:29:40 in the Annual Meeting replay).
Treasurer’s report
Mary Alice Rose: As of March 31, 2024, the end of the Church’s fiscal year, the amount of funds on hand was $1.713 billion. The Church has no indebtedness, and expenditures for the last year were $116 million. We realize this sounds like a lot of money, and all of us should be grateful for the solid financial position of our Church right now. But I want to acknowledge that the Board has received from the Field a couple of questions about these numbers: What is The Mother Church going to do with all that money? And does the Church even need financial support from the members? We’ve asked our Treasurer, Lyon Osborn, to answer those two questions in his report.
Lyon Osborn: To answer the first question, while we’re all working together to demonstrate natural, sustained growth in the Christian Science movement, it seems wise to invest and manage our existing funds carefully, in ways that can support the Church today and tomorrow.
About half of the Church’s funds are limited in how they can be spent. Examples include funds that comprise permanent endowments, funds restricted for specific purposes, and funds designated to cover the ongoing cost to maintain Church buildings and property. The balance of funds can be used for any Church purpose. By preserving and investing all of the Church’s funds, including unrestricted funds, we can use investment income to cover the cost of nearly half of The Mother Church’s current activities and can continue to support those activities for many years to come.
Mrs. Eddy founded a global Church to uplift humanity and heal the sick and sinning, so Church funds are being carefully managed and spent to advance the unique responsibilities she gave her Church in the Manual, including publishing our periodicals, preparing Christian Science teachers and lecturers, and accomplishing essential Committee on Publication work.
Since income from savings doesn’t fund all the Church activities, the other sources of Church funding relate to Mary Alice’s second question: With its substantial funds, does the Church need your financial support? I think you know the answer. It’s “Yes.” In fact, your per capita tax payments and other contributions, your subscription payments, as well as generous provisions many make for the Church in their wills, fund about 40 percent of the Church’s annual expenditures. The balance of expenses is covered by income from Church investments and from leasing out real estate we’re not using since consolidating Church offices in the Publishing House building several years ago.
With income from leasing unused Church real estate covering most of the costs of operating Church buildings and property, more of your generous donations are available to support the Church’s core healing activities. We treasure all the valuable contributions you’re making to move your Mother Church forward.
Lindsey introduced a video of highlights from the Board of Directors’ meetings with branch churches and Mother Church members in different parts of the world. This last year, the Board traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, and also to cities in the United States (see 01:42:21 in the Annual Meeting replay).
Mary Alice Rose: We had such a special time being in the Field. All of us together collectively constitute The Mother Church, and we’re so grateful for all you’re doing. Now, each of us would like to share a few ideas we’ve been praying with.
Moji George: When I saw how the theme of Annual Meeting, “Joy in the living Church,” came about, I realized it was God-inspired. And so, of course I’ve given it considerable thought in the months since. It’s given me a deeper sense of an exchange Christ Jesus had with his disciples. You may remember that he asked, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” And Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus replied, “Upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:13, 16, 18).
I’ve usually focused on that first part of Peter’s answer: “You are the Christ.” But I’ve been thinking about the second part: “You are the Son of the living God.” And I’m beginning to see that that is why the real, spiritual idea of Church is the living Church. It’s based on the “Son of the living God.”
As we have traveled as a Board, listening to the members, I’ve come to see that Church, as a spiritual idea, is first alive in our hearts before we share it with our community. The other aspect of our theme is joy. There’s joy when we are healed in Christian Science, when we witness a healing, or when we hear about a healing at a testimony meeting. But there is a fuller sense of joy—a spiritual joy that Science and Health says is not a “trembler” (p. 298). I feel that sense of fullness of joy comes when we gain a better understanding of God. It’s the joy of salvation. And the Glossary of Science and Health defines salvation in part as “Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all” (p. 593).
Scott Preller: I want to talk a bit about what happens when you turn off your internet connection to this meeting or you go back home. How do we continue to nurture this sense of joy in the church work we’re doing?
Science and Health says of happiness, “It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it” (p. 57). One of the things that was a huge takeaway for me from our travels together as a Board was watching Christian Science being lived and shared by the members we met in various places. You’ve seen what it’s done to transform your own life, so you cannot help but want to share it with someone else. Reading the chapter “Fruitage” in Science and Health afresh after this trip, what I’ve been so struck by is that the vast majority of those healings are there because someone had shared Christian Science with the person who’s testifying.
I want to touch on the idea of sharing Christian Science by working with fellow Christian Scientists in church. That might be through a new commitment to lecture work, or to the services themselves, or to Reading Rooms. After seeing so much of the Reading Room activity on our trip, I found myself thinking, “I wouldn’t go without regularly attending church on Sundays and Wednesdays, so why do I think it doesn’t matter if I’m not going to the Reading Room? Why would I expect the public to be interested in going to the Reading Room if I’m not willing to go there?”
The purpose of going to the Reading Room is to be working shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Christian Scientists, to mentally break through the resistance that’s keeping humanity from being fed by the Comforter.
Rich Evans: Something Lindsey had in her readings from Scripture has taken on a new meaning for me: “Let God be magnified” (Psalms 70:4). There’s clear evidence, however modest, that divine Love is animating this universal movement right now. We can see it if we “turn our gaze,” as Mrs. Eddy tells us, “in the right direction.” On page 248 of Science and Health she states, “We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought.”
So it’s important to turn from the limited mortal model to set our gaze in the right direction, God’s direction, and then walk that way. And don’t ever be discouraged in doing so, because, as we read in Miscellany, “The way is narrow at first, but it expands as we walk in it” (p. 202).
The second item that makes me feel great joy in being here with all of you is the families that are a cherished and an indispensable part of the completeness of Church. The Mother Church is engaged in supporting the spiritual needs of families, all generations and all geographies. What a joy to be constantly seeking to fulfill those two commands of the master Christian, to love God and to love all mankind, without exception.
Recently, especially during our travels, Psalm 51 has had a greater meaning for me: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. . . . Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation” (verses 10, 12). We will not find the Comforter by looking back to what was. It will always be new. And its newness restores us and restores the mission of our Church to heal and to remove from everyone the belief we are separated from God, from the one all-good, all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful divine Principle that governs the whole human family.
Keith Wommack: There are some questions the Board has been thinking about, and we came up with some very short answers.
Why is it harder to heal Christian Scientists than those unfamiliar with it? (It’s not.) Why is it harder to heal physical troubles than relationship problems? (It’s not.) Why can’t we heal today? (We can.) Why aren’t we healing today? (We are.) Why don’t today’s youth want to attend the Sunday School? (They do.) Why are people so self-absorbed today? (They’re not.) Why are people so materialistic and sensual today? (They aren’t.) Why is God so unresponsive to our greatest needs? (He’s not.) Why does God allow suffering? (He doesn’t.) How did we get into the mortal dream? (We didn’t.) What is wrong with God’s spiritual creation? (Nothing.)
Another question we’ve been thinking about: In a living Church, can something be missing? In praying about that, I opened the Bible randomly to Genesis 15: “The word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: . . . And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless . . . ? . . . And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” (verses 1, 2, 5).
Abram wanted children. He was disappointed because he was counting mortals. He didn’t have any. But God lifted his thought heavenward and told him, “Try to count the stars.” Abram found it impossible to number the infinite. So he stopped counting and focused on God. Then he had children, lots of them. His family grew and multiplied. He became the father of nations.
Are we disappointed? Are we believing something’s missing? Is our church, our society, childless? Are there few people in the pews? As we stop counting and acknowledge the infinite—love God with all our heart—we discover that in a living Church there is nothing missing.
Mary Alice Rose: I’ve been thinking about that first hymn we sang today, No. 58. This is the beginning of the second verse:
Come we daily then, dear Father,
Open hearts and willing hands,
Eager ears, expectant, joyful,
Ready for Thy right commands.
(Elizabeth C. Adams, © CSBD)
The adjectives are the meat of that verse—open, willing, eager, expectant, joyful, ready. Those tie in so beautifully with all the testimonies of healing we heard today. And I particularly want to focus on the last testimony, by Joy Rae-Hughes, where she said that when she made the decision to go all in for God, that’s when she could hear the Christ speaking to her. God was talking all along, but she could hear God’s voice when she turned herself wholeheartedly to God.
I take a lesson from these testimonies today. Practicing Christian Science is not keeping oneself from another form of treatment. It’s about making a decision to rely on God as a sufficient help. Of course, we’re all free to choose whatever form of treatment we like, and we should have the utmost compassion and support for one another as we work through these things in the human experience. But I so appreciate the reminder that as we choose what we want, let’s remember the goal: The healing practice of Christian Science that we learn about from the Bible, that Mary Baker Eddy explained in Science and Health, includes prayer alone. Not from a sense of human will, not out of a sense of obligation or deprivation—that’s not Christian Science—but out of a natural readiness to leave all for Christ.
It’s wonderful to be working together to demonstrate the living Church, to come daily to our Father-Mother God, open, willing, eager, expectant, joyful, and ready—ready to experience the living Christ, the practical Truth, expecting to find the joy of Christian Science healing. What a privilege!
Mary Alice called Lindsey back to the stage to conclude the meeting. After silent prayer, special thanks were given to organist Bryan Ashley and soloist Kendra Fogg, as well as to the technical teams and all the workers that made the Annual Meeting activities possible. Finally, Lindsey thanked the families of the officers of The Mother Church for their patient and unselfish support, as well as the families of church workers everywhere. The meeting closed with the singing of Hymn No. 590 and a benediction from Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.”
