Article December 9, 2002 Issue

On any given Sunday— Picturing what church can be in 2003

Warren Bolon Sentinel staff

OVER THE PAST 11 MONTHS in the series "The changing face of church," the Sentinel has turned to clergy, writers, healers, theologians, and theology students, to examine the seismic shift underway in how people worship God and practice their faith. This week Marilyn Jones profiles evangelist Nicky Cruz (see page 6). In this related story, Warren Bolon reports on Christian Scientists who are finding that love for their community is compelling them to reconsider the traditional concept of the church as primarily a fixed-in-stone house of worship. Congregational worship continues to have great value. But as demand grows for spiritual answers, the focus of some churches has shifted. When members' lives are changed by their own encounter with Christ, increasingly they're compelled to rethink church itself—and to take the ministry of healing to the community in ways as different as the individuals who make up a given congregation.

Recent studies show a positive correlation between religious belief or church attendance and better health. How about one's concept of Church, or of God? Can what we think about Church affect our health?

"I have found that to be true," says John Hueffner, a teacher of spiritual healing in Dallas, Texas. "It has been a truism through time that what you worship is what you are. If a person worship or hangs on to matter in some form, then worship and life are very materially oriented experiences. And if one makes a transition to Spirit and to worshiping spiritually, then more lasting things, ideas, can be part of one's experience."

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