ONE BIG CAR. Six good friends. Road trip! But to church?

For weeks, different friends had piled into my car Wednesday nights, and we'd driven from our university for about half an hour to get to Christian Science testimony meetings.

One night, in particular, music was playing, conversations were flowing, and the general mood was a powerful mix of lightheartedness and joy. Most of the members of our new Christian Science organization on campus had come along. Not everyone had been raised in Christian Science. I felt that we were all a troop of spiritual thinkers on the move. That night, my college roommate of now four years had also come with us; this was her first time visiting a Christian Science church. She was talking with our other housemate, my best friend, whose name is D, about God. In my passenger seat sat a childhood friend visiting from his college a few states away. We were having a conversation about praying to God through something my grandfather had once called immediate, "nanosecond prayer."

To me, church is simply, and beautifully, a group of people moving toward growth in good. As I paused to consider the crowd in my car, I realized that the trip itself was an expression of church in action! A collective leaning toward learning more about the kingdom of heaven together. Everyone, by coming to church and sharing an hour together, is participating in and acknowledging a united desire for Truth.

When it comes right down to it, I like church because of this feeling of unity. And although the Church of Christ, Scientist, is my home, I've enjoyed visiting and appreciating this quality in all kinds of churches. Any group of people yearning for a truth to live by, no matter the differences in faith, no matter the culture, is mightily appealing to me. The power of a crowd of people who have voluntarily come together to get closer to God, to help make the world a more peaceful place, can never be underestimated. Over the years, church has gradually become a favorite activity of mine (much like eating candy for someone with a sweet tooth!).

A year ago, when I went on a college abroad to Madagascar, I was able to see many different expressions of church. Madagascar offered no Christian Science church or service. In fact, most of the citizens I spoke with didn't even know there were more than two sects of Protestantism. The church that I regularly attended with my Lutheran homestay family was held in Malagasy, a language I could read, but not understand when spoken. One Sunday morning, as we stood to sing, I realized that we were singing the Doxology, a universal melody, and a favorite of mine from the Christian Science Hymnal. It made me so happy! Despite the differences in language and appearance (this church's stone walls were spray-painted hot purple and covered in lime green tapestries), those services reminded me of the universal importance of church, the value of coming together to get closer to God.

Experiencing Malagasy Lutheranism wasn't enough for me, though. I really wanted to see what brought people together in mosques, too. So, when it came time to do an independent research project, I got permission from my academic director for my proposed idea: I was interested in studying Islam. I just had to. Why? Because my love for church had fueled interest in learning more about what drew people to God in the first place. Soon, I was traveling north to spend two weeks interviewing imams, reading the Qur'an, becoming close with a Muslim high-school student and going to the mosques' services as often as possible. I felt that familiar collective leaning toward Truth—the same united acknowledgment of the importance of God—while praying, in hijab, with the hundreds of other veiled women at Zigatane, the local mosque. Though I was unfamiliar with the Arabic the women around me were quietly uttering, I embraced the chance to see how others incline their thoughts toward God. And as I touched my head to the floor in prayer, I felt so grateful for the idea that I was able to feel connected to God no matter where I was.

A few years earlier I'd experienced this same power of church when my friend and I tried "church-swapping" together. As a freshman in college, I'd become close friends with D, a suitemate who, like me, also made a trek into Boston to go to church every Sunday. At first, we just went our separate ways after we stepped off the train. Then, we spent the subway time back to school talking about each other's respective services, learning about each other and what we believed. But soon we were combining our efforts; at 10:00 we sat together in The Mother Church's college Sunday School class (since at the time we were under the age of 20) and at 11:00 we moved to my friend's local Episcopalian church.

It's been three years since then, and now we're roommates and best friends. D continues to come to church with me, and we've even started a successful Christian Science organization on campus that we host in our own living room. We've supported each other as friends and as metaphysicians. D's rock-solid presence in my life helps me see the importance of spiritual sharing. I'm continually learning more through discussing ideas with her every week.

So back to that memorable car trip—the one that opened my eyes to an even bigger view of church. Returning from the testimony meeting that Wednesday night, I thought about the common thread that brought all my friends together. A search for spirituality and a love for God. We were all coming from different backgrounds but accomplishing the same thing. Our presence at church, both consciously and physically, lent strength to the idea that getting closer to God is a possibility for every single person. As I talked with my friend in the front seat again, both of us smiling and wound up with excitement at the powerful message we'd just heard, the discussions around me were also getting more and more animated.

What a fired-up-by-Truth band of churchgoers, I thought, smiling even bigger. css