Article September 5, 1936 Issue

Filling Vacant Seats

MARY WELLINGTON GALE

The question sometimes arises in our churches, especially when the need for a larger auditorium has led to the erection of an edifice exceeding in capacity the immediate needs of the congregation, "Who will fill the vacant seats?" In approaching the subject, it is pertinent to ask, What does filling the seats in our churches mean? Do not vacant seats signify that there are in our community some whose lives have not yet felt the healing touch of Truth, whose hearts, perhaps, have not felt the satisfying joy of spiritual love, who have not learned that Spirit, God, alone is substance and intelligence?

As we look at the question in this light, we see that our work is not to bring the community to our church to fill its empty seats, but to bring the church to the community to fill its empty lives. Our Leader brought Christian Science to humanity to fill its empty hearts and lives with the joy of spiritual being, and humanity responded to her love by filling her church to overflowing. The magnificent Extension of The Mother Church, its great dome towering above the modest steeple of the original Mother Church, testifies eloquently to this response.

The question of vacant seats sometimes presents itself to the church long established, as well as to the one recently built. The exodus from one church that logically follows the establishment of a new branch presents an opportunity for both churches to obey the Word of God, as voiced by Isaiah, "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and ... stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations." It is but a challenge to reach more deeply into the consciousness of Truth, and let our lives more persuasively echo the call of divine Love, "Come ye to the waters."

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