FOUR DAYS A WEEK during the main business of Parliament in the British House of Commons, the opening period, called Question Time, allows Members of the House to ask questions of government ministers. Openness, honesty, and accountability are expected from the country's leaders.

It occurs to us that although the setting and circumstances are obviously different, it might be instructive, even life-changing, if people of faith took at least half an hour each day to ask themselves some key questions.

In an article in the May 30 issue of The Christian Century, the Reverend Rob Merola volunteered questions that struck him as keenly relevant to the lives of Christians:

• "How is God shaping our lives and churches, even as God shaped personal lives and public communities in ages past?

• "What is God doing in our life and churches that only God can do?

• "What is there both in our experience and in what we offer others that goes beyond psychology and the culture of success and self-help of the world around us?"

Writing well over a hundred years ago, Mary Baker Eddy, Founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, asked many questions that were every bit as essential and challenging—and through her writings, and especially her definitive work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she provided answers that have helped bring salvation and healing to millions of people the world over. Among them:

Speaking of our times and obligations, she asked: "Are we duly aware of our own great opportunities and responsibilities? Are we prepared to meet and improve them, to act up to the acme of divine energy wherewith we are armored?" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, p.176).

When writing about "clearing the gardens of thought," she asked: "Are we picking away the cold, hard pebbles of selfishness, uncovering the secrets of sin and burnishing anew the hidden gems of Love, that their pure perfection shall appear? Are we feeling the vernal freshness and sunshine of enlightened faith?" (ibid., p.343).

In a call for Christian Scientists to become "real and consecrated warriors," she challenged: "Will you give yourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of establishing the truth, the gospel, and the Science which are necessary to the salvation of the world from error, sin, disease, and death?" (ibid., p.177).

Combine both sets of questions, and individuals and church communities have a compelling, stretching agenda for establishing "the vernal freshness and sunshine of enlightened faith." This becomes increasingly important in an age in which we have more gadgets, Internet search engines, and video-based distractions than we'll ever need—all competing for our time with God, and our time with families, neighbors, churches. There's work to be done. Time needed for quietness and prayer. But where to start?

During one of his own frequent "Question Times" with religious leaders, Jesus spelled out life's essentials to one of the teachers of the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." And, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Mark 12:30, 31).

We believe that lives can be transformed by the coincidence of these two activities of loving God and loving one's neighbor. We cannot begin to serve others effectively until He empowers us to do so—until we are totally immersed in our love for Him, and, through that love, impelled to emulate His compassion, empathy, and patience, and to receive His gifts of healing.

Simon Peter had to learn this when Jesus led him through an experience destined to help remove the cloud of Peter's persistent denial that he was connected with Jesus. Three times, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him—probing questions deliberately designed to test Peter's willingness to serve him and help carry forward his teaching and healing mission. Jesus didn't settle for glib reassurances of Peter's love for him. He knew that Peter's ministry had to flow from his love for God, and Jesus expressed this need for care poignantly in just three words, "Feed my sheep" (see John 21:15—17).

Might not those words be related to what Mary Baker Eddy was asking for when she challenged Christian Scientists to give themselves unstintingly to the task of healing "error, sin, disease, and death" in the world?

And how can we start feeding those sheep? By communing more often and more closely with God. By intending and affirming through our actions that God shapes our lives and our church communities, as Merola's article suggested. And when our deep desire is to have God do what only He can do in our lives—love us into health, happiness, holiness, and genuine love for our neighbors.