Article March 10, 1917 Issue

Church Meetings and Progress

G. ALFRED KNOCHE

Corporate meetings of Christian Science branch churches usually involve taking account of and reviewing somewhat the status of the organization in general and the consideration of specific needs in particular. Reports of the permanently organized activities, such as the Sunday school, reading-rooms, literature distribution, and so on, are usually routine matters of great interest to the members. These reports may indicate somewhat the rising or falling mental mercury of the organization, but they may also create a false impression in consequence of the fact that increased outward activities in church work may not always serve as a correct index to progress. On the human plane activity and progress are not necessarily synonymous terms.

It is said that a man who has lost his way will wander in a circle while imagining that he is making progress in a definite direction. This may serve to illustrate the unconscious traditional, or we may say repetitional, tendency of human endeavor. Hence the need of extending our analysis beyond the mere appearance of activity. Religious history since the days of the early Christians is largely a record of this traditional tendency. Orthodoxy, meaning correctness, is its adopted name. It is the effort to make past performance the perpetual standard, and thus stifle progress. It would assume that salvation is to be found in precedent rather than in progress. It argues immunity from challenge or question because it bases its claims on that which was done before.

Christian Scientists will no doubt agree that we cannot stand still. There is present the eternal demand to go forward in our course to higher attainments, but the thought foundations of past experience and growth must be corrected, extended, and reestablished if we would avoid the danger of stagnation and be found basing present activity on past achievement, and thus completing a repetition of cycles which may have the appearance of activity but in which there is no real progress.

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Article
A clergyman is reported to have said at a meeting in...
March 10, 1917
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit