Article May 9, 2011 Issue

This article 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. 

A leading role at our healing service

By Lauren Haden

I’m a high school senior and Sunday School student at First Church of Christ, Scientist, San Rafael, California, and I recently completed my capstone service project in DiscoveryBound’s National Leadership Council (NLC) program. NLC is a four-year leadership program for high school students who are also students of Christian Science. The Capstone Project is an opportunity to serve the local Christian Science community and to put into practice the leadership skills gained over the three previous years of the program. My idea was to organize and conduct a youth-hosted Wednesday testimony meeting at church.

Since I was going to be the substitute First Reader, I had an inspired idea I wanted to share for the readings from the Bible and Science and Health—the idea of spiritual perfection in the coming new year. I realized that we don’t need to make a lot of resolutions. We don’t need to have goals that will bring us closer to being humanly “perfect” because, in fact, we already are spiritually perfect. Recognizing that perfection in God, in others, and in ourselves is the best resolution we can make.

I enlisted the help of my NLC mentor, Ann Kneeland, to teach me how to effectively plan a Wednesday night testimony meeting. She explained that the first thing I needed to do was pray—for the congregation I’d be reading to, and for the right ideas that needed to be shared through the readings. We met at our church’s Reading Room three times over a three-week period, where she taught me how to use Concord on the computer (a study resource and concordance), to choose citations from the Bible and Science and Health, and to select hymns.

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