Article November 3, 1923 Issue

Church Building

MILDRED SPRING CASE

The Christian Science church rises as the testimony that sin yields to an understanding of infinite good; that sickness is not able to abide in the light of the wholeness of Spirit; that sorrow and loneliness and heartache can be wiped away by the presence of divine Love; that poverty and lack and business troubles dissolve because the inexhaustibility of divine Principle is understood. It is because Christian Science heals that churches rise.

How does the membership of a Christian Science church know when it is ready to build an edifice? How does it know that as an organization it is ready to make the demonstration? When the question comes, Are we ready? the members can never decide by looking about to see if this member or that member is prepared; nor can they ever hope to build properly by taking a bird's-eye view of the financial status of its members. The question, Are we ready to build? can be answered only as each individual member asks himself, Am I ready to build? If he looks within himself and finds an honest answer to that question, the aggregate result of the ballot as a whole will show better than any other way whether the membership is ready to undertake building.

Am I ready to build? What does it mean for one to put "Yes" on his ballot? It means that he is ready to do his part; to do constructive thinking, and not destructive; to serve the church better than ever before, for the service rendered in the past is not enough for to-day; to put God first; to give up material things that the spiritual idea may unfold; to invest whole-heartedly, like the poor widow, in the best and surest of investments,—church building; to lay his stone of gratitude in the sanctuary; to test his thoughts to see if they are good building material for a Christian Science church; to yield his opinions to those of the majority, knowing that God's law can and does eliminate any seeming errors. It means that he will not be mesmerized by either the smallness or the greatness of numbers, knowing that in either case all that is necessary is for each individual member to demonstrate his own unity with God. It means that he is ready to relinquish daily anything within himself that obstructs church building. To put "Yes" on a ballot after searching one's heart is no small thing. It means humility, love for God, gratitude for the healing truth of Christian Science. Even if one finds himself not entirely ready, but still willing to start forth to cleanse and purify his mental temple, until it is fit for Love's occupancy, this may also tend to true building!

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