Church Alive February 14, 2011 Issue

The following was written in support of Church Alive, a focus of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, that explores the meaning and possibilities of awakening to the spiritual basis and impact of Church. 

Sunday School: no longer a ‘stepchild’ of church

By Susan Mack

It’s great to be writing my first blog ever, sharing how Sunday School can really catch on fire with powerful healing animus. First, some background. Our Christian Science Society started in the downtown area of St. Louis, Missouri, in 2001 in a storefront. We’re still there, and we love it. We now have a good-sized membership.

Our Sunday School, though, always felt to me like a kind of “stepchild” of the main church services. At first we didn’t have the room to hold both Sunday School and church services at the same time, so the Sunday School met beforehand. We had two pupils. 

A couple of years later we rented the upstairs of the storefront to use for the Sunday School. It took courage for the members to trust we could pay the rent. But we did it, and shortly after, a whole bus load of students from The Principia, a nearby school for Christian Scientists, filled the Sunday School, at least during the school year. Then, in summer 2009, the school decided we were too far away to send their students, so we were back to having about six students. 