On a trip to Thailand some years ago, I visited the Sunday service of a Christian Science Society. As the first one to arrive, I sat in one of the small wooden chairs and waited. Soon, a sprightly gentleman arrived. His face alight, he asked if I would be willing to serve with him to read aloud the Bible Lesson-Sermon (found in the Christian Science Quarterly) that morning. Shortly, a few more local folks joined as the Christ message was read.

The gathering brought to mind the joy, love, and power of the early Christian community, referred to by Mary Baker Eddy, and a few first members of the Church of Christ, Scientist, when they voted “to organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing” (Church Manual, p. 17). In the service, we may have thought in different languages, but all experienced a sense of church in one Spirit. Anyone attending would have felt God’s, divine Love’s, healing touch and carried this Christly uplift out into the community. Each time and wherever this happens, the impact goes beyond our immediate surroundings to augment leavening the thought of “the whole human family.”

“The whole human family” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 98) was a phrase used by Mrs. Eddy, speaking in Chicago in 1888. It relates a powerful reason to come together as Christian Scientists and support each other: to find ways and means to not merely better ourselves but to help all humanity find within themselves the Christ-spirit already present.