Article January 24, 1931 Issue

The Goal of the Sunday School

LOU-VEE B. SIEGFRIED

One of the important activities of the Churches of Christ, Scientist, is the teaching of Christian Science to the young people in the Sunday schools. The wide scope of the lessons provided for Sunday school instruction by the Manual of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, carries the teaching through the letter of Christian Science and enables the receptive thought to become imbued with the spirit of the divine law and the gospel. Articles helpful to teachers on the stated lessons have appeared from time to time in the authorized Christian Science periodicals, and are usually available in the files at the Reading Rooms maintained by the branch churches. The individual teacher, however, must largely make his own demonstration of method in teaching, being ever careful to check his statements by the standard of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Devoted, prayerful, and earnest effort on the part of the teachers, together with regular attendance, courteous attention and obedience from the pupils, must establish a comprehension of Christian Science in the thoughts and characters of the pupils which no influence can ever erase.

The goal of the Sunday school may be briefly stated as the expectation that each pupil taught there shall have so practical a knowledge of Christian Science that he will be enabled, when necessary, to heal himself, and others when called upon for help; that he will have so deep a love and reverence for his church that he will put his shoulder to the wheel and do his share in evangelizing the world; that he will meet and master the erroneous suggestions coming to him from materialism, with the knowledge that God, good, divine Mind, is the only power, substance, and cause.

The privilege of attending a Christian Science Sunday School is granted up to the age of twenty years (Manual, Art. XX, Sect. 1). We well may ask, Twenty years; and then what? Where are those many students who have gone forth from the Sunday school throughout the years? Where are the pupils of to-day going when they leave the Sunday school? Will they come into the church and take their places, serving in the organization? Many students have already come into the church, and are taking their share of church responsibility. Numerous others are better men and women for the training they have had in right thinking, and surely, eventually, they will be guided to a real desire for further understanding of the truth, and seek it from their own initiative.

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