Organizing a Christian Science lecture. Serving as First Reader during a Wednesday testimony meeting. Writing testimonies for this magazine. Arranging for Mary Baker Eddy’s books to be placed in public libraries. Raising funds for the building of The Mother Church as well as branch churches. Helping their branch church think through how to transform the Reading Room during a major renovation. These are all examples of the contributions of Sunday School students throughout the history of the Christian Science movement.
In addition to gathering current stories of what Sunday Schools around the world are doing, the Church Activities Department has also been grateful for the support of our colleagues at The Mary Baker Eddy Library in exploring the early history of the Christian Science Sunday School.
For example, we learned the remarkable story, from 1899, of a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in Schofield, Wisconsin, that was run nearly entirely by young people. With a sixteen-year-old clerk and a fourteen-year-old treasurer, the children eventually worked with adults to make their church official under the laws of Wisconsin. An article about this unique church says: “This is the story; this is what the little children at Schofield have done; but what its result will be when the example, the energy, the enterprise, and the intelligence of these little children shall have wrought their perfect work, eternity alone can reveal.” The children were able to arrange to build a small church, and the article states that “... prior to the dedicatory service, every obligation of the building committee was paid, and the manly little treasurer reported, with an air of dignified satisfaction, that he had $2.27 in the treasury.” (Editor, “The only church in the United States built by children,” The Christian Science Journal, February 1899).
