Article October 6, 1934 Issue

Church Ushering

FRANK TUTTLE DAUGHERTY

Great stress is laid by the active Christian Scientist on the right performance of his tasks, including humble ones. A symphonic movement may be inharmonized by the carelessness of one player. The Christian Scientist resists the temptation to believe that, because his work may not have been especially noticed by others—perhaps in church ushering—he has been falsely applying time and effort. He sees in the harmony his branch church expresses the unmistakable results of years of faithful work by the members. From experience he has learned that no slightest effort for good is lost, for God careth for "all things both great and small."

"I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness," sang the Psalmist. Faithful Christian Scientists have learned with the Psalmist to find quiet satisfaction in the performance of their church tasks, whatever they may be. If their work sometimes appears to them to be not so important as they think it should be, they should reverse the subtle argument for aggrandizement of self and realize a blessing in added opportunity to be about their Father's business.

Ushering, for example, is an opportunity for service in the Cause all Christian Scientists love, because it furnishes an opportunity for spiritual growth. Mrs. Eddy's admonition (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 392), "Stand porter at the door of thought," is one the watchful usher is sure to learn to use. Porters, doorkeepers, and ushers have important tasks. All three terms carry the double significance of welcoming and resisting—welcoming the good and resisting the evil in thought. The usher who confines his concept of the opportunity offered by ushering to directing people to their seats in an auditorium—though surely this loving interchange of greeting and welcome is a complementary part of the right idea of ushering—is losing much of the reward that should be his.

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