Church Alive November 12, 2012 Issue

The following was written in support of Church Alive, a focus of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, that explores the meaning and possibilities of awakening to the spiritual basis and impact of Church.

Gratitude and growth

Martha Sarvis

Last December, our church board was reviewing the budget for the coming year. The previous year had ended in a shortfall, and the coming year looked to be about the same. At first we looked at ways to cut expenses, but this approach seemed so limited—and limiting. We also couldn’t cut enough to bring the budget into balance.

One of our board members suggested that we work with an October 2011 article from The Christian Science Journal, titled “Facing Down Limitation” (by Joel Magnes). The article acknowledges that there is no limitation in divine Spirit and that we must banish all thoughts of limitation from our thinking and experience. We shared the article with our members and asked that they pray with these ideas.

As a part of breaking through limited thinking, we realized that gratitude would be very important. So we started giving gratitude for all the good in our church, which led us to being grateful for all our members. The idea came to send a handwritten thank-you note to all our members. Each board member was assigned a list of members to write to, and then the whole board signed each card. We thanked the members for their work on committees and acknowledged the wonderful spiritual qualities that they expressed.