Why Church is still relevant

spirituality.com host: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. My name is Rosalie Dunbar, and I’ll be your host for the next hour. Today we’ll be exploring the topic, “Why Church is still relevant,” and our guest is Nathan Talbot, a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science who is also the Clerk of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors here in Boston. Nate, who holds a Doctor of Laws degree from the Willamette University School of Law has had many posts in the Church. I first got to know him when he was Associate Editor of the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal magazines, along with the Herald of Christian Science, which is a non-English periodical. You can explore all three of those on our website. Since then Nate has had many additional assignments, including service as President of The Mother Church, and a Trustee of The Christian Science Publishing Society. Nate, do you have some thoughts to get us started?

Nathan (Nate) Talbot: Gosh, Rosalie, there is so much to say about Church. I suppose we could spend days talking about it, couldn’t we?

spirituality.com host: Yes.

Nate: I’ll tell you one thing that I’ve thought about it. You look at some organizations, some, oh, like a sandwich shop, may be around for a few months, a few years, or maybe a shoe shop—or some little organization like that—they come and go. Some are bigger organizations, things like General Motors: they come and go. But Church, when you start thinking about Church, and here’s a reason I think it’s got to have some relevance to it, because it’s been around for centuries, just centuries. As I’ve thought a little bit about why, you know, why does a sandwich shop come and go, and why does Church stay? It’s probably because Church is so focused on, and related to, God. I mean in one word, that’s why. And I think that’s why Church ultimately is going to be relevant, because it relates to God, and that’s so central to people’s lives that it’s a winner, in a sense. I think there’re going to be ups and downs in terms of how relevant people think Church is at a given time, even if it stays around in name a lot, things have changed a good deal.

I’ll just give you a little example. I think back, not too awfully long ago, Church was sort of the support system for people’s lives. Today, what’s the support system people tend to look to? I think it was very interestingly described in a nationally syndicated news column by a pediatrician by the name of Robert Mendelson. He said that today’s cathedrals are the hospitals and the medical complexes. And he said the doctors are the high priests, and the nurses are the acolytes, and the operating table is the altar. In other words, he was showing a shift in terms of where people find their support system. The health care system is very relevant because people are thinking a lot about their health, and the medical establishment is doing a lot to try to meet that need. So we might find the concept of Church shifting a bit, depending on how able the Church is to be a support system for people.

spirituality.com host: That’s a very interesting point, isn’t it?

Nate: Yeah, yeah, I think it tells us a little bit, too, of what we need to do in thinking about how to keep our Church relevant—and I mean that in the broadest sense. Church, from anyone’s faith tradition, if they want their church to be relevant, in the long run, they’re going to have to meet the deepest needs of people. I mean, we can do some things on the surface, but for the long term, it’s going to have to meet the deepest needs, and that relates to our sense of well-being, our sense of life, and what it’s all about.

spirituality.com host: Getting to, not just the superficial, but really getting in to the feeling where you know that’s where the answers will be found.

Nate: Yeah, and in a practical way, too. I mean Church can present itself as a building where you go and you spend some time each Sunday morning, and that gives you some sense of Church, but even at that, that’s still pretty much a symbol, isn’t it? If you don’t get deeper than that probably—unless you’ve got a real commitment just to a building—you’re probably not going to keep going there every Sunday.

spirituality.com host: That’s a good point because even if you come out of church on a Sunday feeling pretty good, if two hours later you’re back to where you were—

Nate: Sure. Unless Church has given you something that carries you through the week, yeah. Which probably tells us one thing, Church has got to be more than the bricks and the stone.

spirituality.com host: Right. Well, we’ve got a whole bunch of questions, and we’ll start off with Julie from Bellevue, Washington. She says: “The concept of Church has different meanings to various cultures and nationalities. How is the Christian Science concept of Church relevant to today’s many challenges?”

Nate: Well, that is a good question, and I think we need to think seriously about it. I think we need to be honest with ourselves, and it might be pretty easy for someone who’s a real defender of Church to toss out a whole lot of ideas about why we’re so relevant. But, again, being honest with ourselves, we’ve got to take a look at Church and say, “How well are we meeting the needs of every individual?” To the extent we are, we will see Church thriving and growing. To the extent that we’ve got to do better, well, we’ll just have to learn how to do better.

But how do we meet the needs of individuals? I guess I have thought of Church as a kind of support system in my life in lots of ways. You read a few of the things I’ve done in my background as far as education, but I have to tell you, Rosalie, I think my strongest education has come out of Church. In the sense of Sunday School, that was an education for me. I took a course in class instruction that helped me learn to be a better healer —at least I hope it did—and I felt that was an important part of my education. I study a Bible Lesson Sermon each day that is part of my education that the Church puts out. So I think that Church is relevant in terms of supporting my ongoing education. Frankly, I rank that even above any of the degrees I hold from the secular world. I just see lots of ways that the Church has supported me. I found ways, that in terms of dealing with health problems, that Church is a support.

So, just looking at my own experience, I think while we have to do something, too. It’s not just that Church is there alone supporting us; we’ve got to be engaged with Church. I see lots of ways that it’s been very relevant in my life, and very supportive to my progress.

spirituality.com host: This is from Karen in Florida. She says: In a well-loved poem by Mary Baker Eddy, there’s a line that reads: “My prayer, some daily good to do / To Thine, for Thee” (Christian Science Hymnal No. 253 ) My question is how can churches do a better job of providing daily good? Reading Rooms that are open every day would be a good start, but how else can churches do active good each day of the week?

Nate: I suppose that the reason that’s an important question is because too often our society is focused on Sunday, or maybe a few other meetings that a church may have. For our church, of course, Wednesday evening meetings are important, but I do think there has to be more that comes out of church, Rosalie, that helps us feel we’re blessed or supported each day. I was just thinking of a little example that might help illustrate: Years ago, I had cut some wood, and I was climbing up the top of a wood stack in the barn. I got up about twelve feet high, and I fell over backward, and fell to a concrete floor. It felt like I was just falling into a big batch of those Styrofoam peanuts, you know? It was the most unusual experience, and I got up, and I just kind of thought, “What does this mean?” It was just such a dramatic kind of experience. And I didn’t fully understand it, and as a matter of fact for several days I thought about it, even prayed about it, like what was this telling me? As I prayed about it one day, I thought—all of a sudden I realized what that meant. I remembered that as a church, our membership—and that is this branch church—our membership was sort of supporting each other by reading together the book,Science and Health, that Mary Baker Eddy wrote. As a matter of fact, I’d even drawn my Sunday School class into that little project. We were sort of putting our arms around each other, nurturing each other through that reading of that textbook. And I don’t know, I was partway through it, halfway through it, maybe, and so as I prayed about it, I suddenly realized that’s what had protected me. That Church was right there; it was part of my experience. I was blessed by it because we were doing that together. So, that was on like a Monday or a Tuesday. It wasn’t on a Sunday, it wasn’t on a Wednesday when I might have been in church anyway.

So sometimes just doing things together, being willing to support each other as individuals that have this common ideal, this common vision of God and His reality, supports us in ways we might not have even thought about. That was a pretty dramatic way. I have a feeling most people are supported in ways that they just haven’t recognized. If they just opened their thought a little bit, they’d probably see some of those ways.

spirituality.com host: And of course there have been instances of healing during a church service or where someone is, for example, a reader—in Christian Science, there are two Readers who read the Bible Lesson—where someone has become ill or injured on their way to church and suddenly, they’re fine. And that’s the expectation of the church members, really.

Nate: Absolutely. I was talking to somebody the other day and said that he sometimes takes notes—whether it’s mental, or maybe sometimes on a little piece of paper, in the church service, maybe especially on a Wednesday evening, and then they think about those ideas during the week. So we have to play a role, it’s not just that the Church does something for us, or takes care of us, without us being a part of it. We’ve got to be engaged.

spirituality.com host: This is a kind of a long question, and if you need me to repeat it, just let me know. It’s Catherine from Houston, Texas, and she says: I’m interested in working on three issues that I see as challenges for all churches today: church seen primarily as a business or social network, the pull toward either fundamentalism or else divisiveness—that’s number two—and the promise and challenge of the globalization of religious thought. So the first one is Church as a business or social network. The second—

Nate: Let’s just take them one at a time here.

spirituality.com host: OK. Good idea.

Nate: Tell me again, what is it that she’s doing with each of these?

spirituality.com host: She’s interested in working on three issues that she sees as challenges for all churches.

Nate: So she’s seeing each one of these issues as something that you’ve got to confront and think about and deal with.

spirituality.com host: And if you think about it, just from my own experience of friends who are in other churches, they’re dealing with these issues, too, so it’s really universal.

Nate: Sure. I think there’s no question about it, each one of them, actually.

spirituality.com host: Yes.

Nate: Well, let’s look first at the becoming a kind of business, or what’d she call it?

spirituality.com host: Social network.

Nate: Social network—that can be just an example of how the world, or worldly thinking, would try to turn us away from the power of Church, would try to detour us from experiencing something of what really should be at the heart of Church, which is healing, which is the power of Love, which is a sense of learning how to be uplifted and inspired and joyous. It’s a little bit like, is Church another human organization, like some industry? And running a church can become that way. Pretty soon you’re spending all your time taking care of paying the bills, getting the roof fixed, being sure that the grounds are clean, and the flowers are properly placed. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that, but if that becomes what Church is, then I can understand her question.

Maybe part of the answer has to be what is the spiritual nature of Church? And maybe even having the membership, at least from time to time—it may not be real often, but from time to time—exploring spiritually what the inner purpose of their church is. I remember talking with a Methodist minister one time, and she was telling me about how it’s so easy—their church membership got bogged down in just the human details of doing things, and how a big fuss came over. There was a little building they had on the church property, and their whole church membership got up in arms over how they were going to use that little building, and what they were going to store in it, and suddenly everybody began realizing that’s not what church is about. Church has to do with God, and so like any church, they had to kind of find their way back. But I think it was because they started to think a little more about the spiritual nature of Church.

Rosalie, Mary Baker Eddy has a very, I guess you could say, unusual description of Church from the standpoint of how a lot of people in the world think of it. She talks first about a very spiritual element. She says: “The structure of Truth and Love . . . .” Now structure, you usually think of as the bricks and the stone. But here she’s talking about Truth and Love, and she capitalizes those two words. So she’s really, I think, at least helping me see that Church has something to do with God—Truth and Love as God—and where God comes into our lives. So one way to challenge, I guess, this whole sense of getting pulled in to too much of the social, too much of the business aspect, is to get more focused on Truth and Love—where does that fit into our lives? How is that relevant to our day to day experience? And actually asking people to just think carefully about that. I remember one time just taking that little phrase, Truth and Love, and looking that up in all of the writings of the Founder of our Church, Mary Baker Eddy, and really just opened my thought to a lot of ways that I needed to be thinking more about real Church. I think it helped turn my thought away, just some of the human details I needed to deal with regarding church. It’s a discipline, it is. It’s not easy to keep that spiritual sense of Church.

spirituality.com host: I think, especially, if there’s a thing like what you were saying with that little building, where people get drawn into a particular topic, to pull yourself out of it again, it does take discipline.

Nate: Yeah, it’s the nature of the human mind that will always look for the more material, the more human, the more mundane. I mean, it just drifts in that direction. You know, it takes some courage, and some spiritual sense, to really lift thought out of that downward pull. Let’s see, she had talked about what, fundamentalism, getting pulled into a kind of a fundamentalist attitude. What was her second?

spirituality.com host: The pull toward either fundamentalism or else divisiveness.

Nate: I suppose every church—in fact, I take that a little further—every individual in every church has to deal with what might be called a kind of fundamentalism. I think there are some very positive elements about fundamental truths that all of us need to turn to from time to time. I mean you couldn’t have a more fundamental truth than God’s reality and His love for us, His presence and care, and the value of prayer. Those are so basic and so fundamentally true that all of us can relate to them.

But I have a feeling the sort of thing she’s concerned about and maybe finds herself having to deal with is a kind of turning to a more, we might call it, not exactly just a traditional way of looking at things or a kind of an orthodoxy that sort of follows a path without enough thinking and praying behind it. And we all can do that. I mean I know I’ve done it. I know sometimes I’ve started down a path and pretty soon I’m just marching down that path because I’m pretty sure that’s the right path. That can be a kind of fundamentalist way of approaching something, and even if that path is a good path, if I’m doing it more as a matter of just doing it out of routine or ritual or a blind following, it’s probably not going to be as helpful a path as it could be.

And so, even if a church is following a path that has some reasonable basis for the direction they’re going, or even has some good things about it, if people aren’t thinking and praying about how they’re taking that pathway, it’s probably not going to be as healing. It’s not going to be as fruitful, and it can have a lot of limitations. And as a matter of fact, over the years, and over the decades, if we follow patterns of thought without really praying them through, then we won’t be as healing a church as we should be. I mean one little pattern that we might follow as you go to church and you sit in the same place each week, and you don’t think about maybe a little different angle in how you’re looking at the church—not that there’s anything wrong with sitting in the same pew, but if that becomes a ritual where you get mad if somebody else is sitting in that pew when you walk into church, then there may be a little bit of a fundamentalist attitude there you need to outgrew.

spirituality.com host: Well, and those fundamentalist attitudes can lead to divisiveness where one group says we’ve always done it this way, and another group might want to innovate and so forth.

can’t learn to do it there, it’s going to be a lot tougher to do it in other ways in society, or in our world as a whole. So, yeah, if a person or a group of people in church begin moving in a direction, a pattern of thought, a tradition that they’re doing it just because we’ve always done it that way, that’s probably not a good enough reason. It probably needs to be more prayer-based. But if somebody else or some other group feels, Gosh, we’ve got a more innovative way to do it, if their whole purpose is just to do something different for the sake of change, they probably haven’t got a strong enough foundation, either. And when you get those two groups, kind of knocking heads a bit, you’ve got a—I think what you’ve got is, you haven’t got just a church problem, you’ve got a theological problem. The answer to that is, how much do we know about God’s love, and how much of that are we reflecting of that Love toward each other? How willing are we to find a little humility? How able are we to respect our fellow Christian Scientists, for example, or a member of The Church of Christ, Scientist? Those are important lessons for us to learn, and church is a great place to learn them. It’s a great laboratory, really.

spirituality.com host: It is. And the last part of her question is: The promise and challenge of the globalization of religious thought.

Nate: I don’t know exactly what she means about globalization of religious thought. Maybe one thing she’s pointing to is that this is becoming a pretty small world. And as we shrink, we’re going to find out that there are lots of different perspectives, religious perspectives in this world, and they’re going to come a little closer to us, and we’re probably going to be exposed a little more toward them. And, as a matter of fact, even right within our own faith tradition, we might find a variety of ways of doing things, of how we think and act. And maybe one basis we need is to start from the premise that if we have one God—you know, basic First Commandment teachings—if there is one God that we worship, then our purpose ought to be to find that as a unifying element because whatever ways others around the globe practice or think about God, it is the same God. And that should be a unifying element. That ought to draw us together, really.

I’ve had an opportunity, with other members of the Board of Directors—our Church has a five-member Board of Directors—and we’ve been taking the opportunity to visit with congregations around the world. And while I think we’re quite united in our theology, our conviction of God’s perfection and the fact that God is infinite, that’s He all, ever present, and that that means ultimate reality is an expression of this perfection, even if we have a ways to go to prove it. As we are going around the world and finding that unity of our theology, we find a wide variety of how it’s practiced, how people apply the truths of Christian Science in their lives. And I think it’s important for us to learn how to respect and to value the fact that there can be a rich diversity within a theology that is clear and strong and powerful in our lives. Yeah, I don’t see a threat to this globalization of religious thought, if we are growing in our understanding of what it means for there to be one God.

spirituality.com host: Henry from Fair Oaks, California is asking a question specifically about Christian Science churches. He says: It seems the sign, “All are welcome” is not as prominent now as it used to be on Christian Science churches. Have they become more exclusive as to who attends and who applies for membership? If so, what can be done about it?

Nate: It’s pretty hard to say for sure. I guess the only evidence I would have would be somewhat anecdotal. I guess I’ve seen both. I’ve seen examples where probably—maybe it starts mentally—a little less openness to welcoming others in. But I have seen other examples where a branch church is really thriving and has a very open sense, a very welcoming attitude, and not just because they’re hoping that will draw people in. I’ve seen times when the love seems so real, so authentic, that I think others just feel that, and that does help welcome others in. To the extent that we’re not doing that, and it certainly can happen, it’s very easy to get into these patterns where we’re sort of a bit of a club for ourselves. To the extent that happens, we’re going to have to find ways to break out of that, no question about it.

One way, I suppose, is just discovering that our church—maybe if you’re in a branch church, and you discover that over time you’re dwindling in members, you need to open your thought a little bit. What does it mean to love our fellow men and women? What does it mean to be more embracing of those that we really do care for? Sometimes I think people have felt that we can be a little too exclusive. There might be a difference—in fact, I think there really is—between what it means to actually sign on the dotted line and become a member of our particular denomination, and on the other hand, what it means to come to church or to be a part of a congregation.

You know, it’s interesting, Rosalie, that in our Church you can do almost anything pertaining to how our church functions and operates. You can come to church services, you can study the Bible Lesson Sermon that Christian Scientists study every week, you can go to the Reading Room, you can go to lectures; almost everything that our Church provides for society is really open to everyone in society. It’s true that when you join the church literally, then you go to the business meetings and you help determine some of the functionings of the church and that sort of thing. But the kinds of things that help win your salvation, actually, everybody is welcome to do that. If our thought has been too closed to that, if we’re thinking in terms of there’s just a little group of us that are eligible to practice these truths or study these ideas or take advantage of what the Church is providing, like Reading Rooms and so on, than we’ve kind of lost sight of the Founder of our Church’s vision of this Church, because she saw it for everyone.

spirituality.com host: Your comment reminds me of a church I attended in Canada last fall that was very devoted to healing, and they had a downtown Reading Room, and even a downtown church service on Wednesdays, really with the desire to reach out to their community and bring out the healing aspect of Christian Science. And I think maybe we should talk a little bit about that, do you think? In terms of not just really providing resources for people to understand how Jesus healed and how that can help them in their lives, but also, being aware of conditions in the community and praying to heal them and really addressing them specifically, not just saying, “Oh, well, the city can take care of that” or whatever. Do you think that’s a part of being more broad, reaching-out kind of thing?

Nate: It certainly should be. A couple of years ago we had an Annual Meeting of The Mother Church, the worldwide headquarters here in Boston, our Annual Meeting that was embracing Christian Scientists throughout the world. The theme was the fact that we are a Church of healers. I think maybe part of the reason for that theme was to be sure we are reminding ourselves that if there’s any one really significant contribution that we may have to society at the moment, it is this concept of spiritual healing. I have friends from a range of different faith traditions, and I’ll have to say that each one has within their church something special that they’re doing for society.

And if they were to ask me, “What are you doing special?” that might be one of the first things that would come to my mind, that our Church would offer to Christianity—and beyond Christianity—the ideal that understanding the nature of God can bring healing. I guess I find it natural to think that every individual who has some sense of God, if they understood the spiritual truths and laws that their Scripture brings out, they would find that they could heal, very naturally. Just as Jesus practiced healing, just as actually, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Elisha—the early prophets—all of these people, I think, practiced what I would call healing. They practiced spiritual truths and spiritual laws that enabled them to solve problems, to defeat difficulties, sometimes devastating difficulties. And so, I see that as very much what our Church is all about is healing.

I’d say that maybe in a couple of ways it feels to me as though Church should be instrumental in helping an individual feel a better sense of healing. I think it should not be unusual to come to church and experience healing. Maybe it’s going to be like one time I went to church I had a headache, and I walked out of church free. It was real clear the moment that healing came, just some spiritual ideas that came clear, and it healed me right there in church. I feel that the Lesson-Sermon that we study all through the week, that is read on a Sunday, that should bring healing into our lives. That’s part of what our Church is bringing to the individual. That’s a part of it.

The other part is that Church should have a healing effect for the community, and for the world, for that matter. I really believe that when human consciousness is spiritually filled with light—and that can happen and should happen through the activities of Church—that that literally affects a community. I know of examples where a community has had a church in it where the members of the church prayed about a particular challenge in their community. I remember one example where auto theft was what they dealt with, and the statistics actually went down that month that they prayed. And there was a little news item in the local newspaper actually about it. I know of several examples where there has been some concrete evidence that prayer coming from a church literally made a difference.

spirituality.com host: Fred from New Hampshire says: So much of what church has provided in the past can be found online now. Is coming together as a group on a weekly basis still relevant?

Nate: Well, yes and no. I know of someone that lives in a country where there is no Christian Science church in the whole country. This young person comes online and they can go to Sunday School—there’s an online Sunday School, Christian Science Sunday School for them—so they’re participating in this facet of Church that is really a blessing in their lives. If I had to go through my whole life and I never had an opportunity to engage with others, if it all came online, I think I’d probably feel I was missing something. I don’t know, maybe fifty years from now, maybe at some point, people will feel that’s where society is. I’ll have to say at this point I find it helpful to maybe have a handshake with somebody and that smile that comes along, and maybe a pat on the shoulder if you’re feeling a little down. There are just some things that happen in church that can be actually healing. I wouldn’t minimize that at this stage in our experience. I don’t think it always has to take place just in a building that we call a church building. I think that that characterization of this “structure of Truth and Love” we talked about a little while ago, I think that can happen in a lot of different places—that we can experience and demonstrate and feel the blessings of Church in lots of ways at lots of different times. It can happen in a family at home. It can happen at work. It can happen in school. Church can actually be everywhere if you’re thinking of Church in a more spiritual light. And I do value and I appreciate some of what can go out to the world on the Internet in terms of Church. But I probably am one who isn’t quite ready to give up all of the—you know, walking into the building, enjoying the presence of others, and the music, and all. How about you, do you feel that way still or…?

spirituality.com host: I like going to church, too. But as you said, the Internet does make things available to people, especially those who are far from a church, you know, just physically can’t get there.

Nate: Yeah, it’s a tool. It is a way to share with others a sense of Church. And actually the possibilities are really, I think, in terms of what the Web can offer, are quite dramatic. But I don’t see that as a substitute for Church, really; I see it as a complement, maybe.

spirituality.com host: Right. Bea from Detroit has sent us a couple of messages and she’s—again this is related to Christian Science. She says: A Reading Room’s the first line of defense when churches close. I’m asking because our church just closed, and I was thinking is there a replacement in that community now? And what does that say about people in the area who have given up or are leaving for the unknown? What were the purposes of Reading Rooms before they just got into selling like a book store does? And that’s sort of an interesting question about how to maintain a presence in a community, a spiritual presence in a community if your church closes.

Nate: Well, let’s start with something that happens to all churches every Sunday after the service. The church closes. Do we still have a presence? Absolutely. That church, hopefully, has a Reading Room somewhere in that community that can continue to meet the needs of individuals.

I suppose, and she’s probably referring to a situation where their branch church became very small in membership and had to close their doors permanently. I do know of churches where they have closed their building, and literally sold the building, and I guess you could say, in a sense, moved into the Reading Room in a little storefront kind of church, very modest. Maybe they’d only have a few people at their Sunday or Wednesday services. But the Reading Room still had its doors open to the community.

So I guess I would hope that even if a church felt that that was the right step for them to take in closing their doors as a separate building, the doors to the Reading Room—I mean, they’re probably going to be open more than the church was anyway. A church is open a couple of hours a week, really. A Reading Room’s probably going to be open more than that. I can see the Reading Room as really an ongoing presence in a community, even if a church feels, at least at the moment, that the building isn’t meeting their needs. Some people have felt that the building wasn’t meeting their need even though they had a healthy membership, and decided to have something a little more present right in a downtown area.

I know of one church that they sold the block—their church had a whole block, a good part of it was parking lot, but a huge church, and they had a small membership. And they sold it to a developer and the developer—part of the agreement was that when he developed this little mall in this one block area, covered mall, that one of the places was a Christian Science Reading Room. So they were sort of sandwiched between, I think it was a little sewing shop and a beauty salon, and they were just part of the family there in that group of stores. It was a small little Reading Room but it had a lot, and it had a little sanctuary up there where they held their services. So I would hope that even if a large building doesn’t seem to be the best solution for a given group of people, that they will find ways—and a Reading Room can be a great way—to continue serving the community.

spirituality.com host: Now Kara from Boston is asking—coming back to some of the comments you made earlier. She says: Why become a member? What’s the point when I can study the Lesson on my own and come to church when I feel inspired to?

Nate: We’ve probably all had feelings like that. I suppose—I’m just thinking of a youngster—could a kid grow up and never play a game of soccer, or never text a message, or never have to take an exam where he got an A or maybe a D? I mean could a youngster go through life and never do any of those things? Sure. He could grow up, but he’d probably miss some things that are pretty special, and they help you develop, and they are a part of your experience that you look back on and feel strengthened your growing up years.

I think you could probably grow up and not be a member of a church, and I think you’d miss something. I think that there is something about being a part of church that is a blessing. It has demands to it: you may struggle sometimes, and yet there’s something about Church that nurtures your spirituality that is a shame to miss. If there’s a reason that a person could not join a branch church somewhere, I could understand that. It’s kind of hard to say that about The Mother Church because we’re worldwide. Anybody, all over the world, can join The Mother Church wherever they are. It’s not that they come to services, although they might online. Our services are all over the world. I sure would encourage people who feel resistance to organization to just pray a little bit about that because you know what? If you feel resistant to organization, it probably is something you need.

I’ve even asked myself ,as I look back over the years, and I’ve served in a variety of church jobs, I think I always thought of myself as somebody that would probably, more likely, be out in the wilderness somewhere under a pine tree. And I’ve thought maybe the reason is that I’ve just got some things I’ve got to learn. I’m still having to learn them so I keep finding myself involved in church in some way. I think we all do. We all have things we can learn from church, and we’ll have to learn them some way, and church forces us to learn those things.

Well, I’m not sure it has to be that way. I think there’s got to be some kind of an answer where you can still be a part of church, and not be bogged down with just a lot of human duties. Nate: Maybe that illustrates the fact that any of us who have had feelings that we’d rather be somewhere else or do something else than church, maybe it indicates that we are trying to escape those demands that church makes on us. I can sure understand if a person is an area where it’s a kind of a small church and you know if you join, you’re going to be elected to all sorts of offices. And maybe that’s not quite where your heart is, just doing a lot of human things.

I think another reason, sometimes, people may resist church is they just frankly don’t want to deal with some of the struggles that take place when you have to work things out together. And that’s a little of what church is: learning how to work things out together. It seems easier if you can just do it the way you want to do it, and you don’t have to sort it out with somebody else. Sometimes people feel that way in a marriage. Sometimes they feel that way at work or wherever. They feel that way at church, too. That having to find answers by praying and thinking together is not easy sometimes. And sometimes people have gotten frustrated with church, and they’ve just left church because it was too much of a hassle for them, which I can understand. I think any of us have had feelings, sometimes, where mentally we’ve probably left, found ourselves having to come back.

I’ve thought of it a little bit sometimes like if you were traveling across a desert, and you had a horse, and as you went across this desert, the horse kept bucking you off. And that happens in church a little bit—sometimes you get bucked off and sometimes you fall pretty hard on that desert floor. You might get discouraged, and you might just say to that horse, “Forget it.” And just start walking across the desert. And that can be OK for awhile, but pretty soon you’re going to wish that you had learned to train that horse to be a servant instead of a master. And so, I joke a little sometimes about church—it’s kind of a horse of a different color. We get bucked off sometimes, but a good horseman will get right back on that horse. I was raised on a horse on a ranch and every time I got bucked off—and I got bucked off a lot—I would get right back on that horse. One time it took about three days, I couldn’t even get out of bed, but as soon as I could, I was back on that horse again. And I think church has got to be a little that way. You get right back in the saddle of church. You learn the humility, you’re strengthened spiritually, and I’m not sure that I can think of any other human organization on the planet that develops our ability to grow closer to God as well as church is capable of doing—tough as it may be sometimes.

spirituality.com host: That’s right. This is from Marti in Munich, Germany. It’s a long question. She says: In our church we have a visitor who seems to feel at home here, but she says from time to time that she doesn’t understand most of what she hears. She regrets not being able to attend Sunday School because she’s over twenty. I used that opportunity to tell her a Bible story as I would have in Sunday School, so she understood more about a particular Bible figure. Although she appreciated this very much it didn’t help her for all future Sunday services. How can our services be more relevant for these visitors that need help in understanding the readings?

Nate: Do you mean just in terms of understanding the language?

spirituality.com host: Right.

Nate: That may have some pretty practical implications. There might just need to be an effort to really strive to learn a little more of the language. Probably, certainly, in this case there would be an English translation, a German translation for the Bible Lesson, that maybe would help the individual. But I’ll tell you something at a little deeper level, Rosalie, that this individual might think about. As we travel around the world visiting different churches, I can think of a variety of countries where the Board of Directors has gone to a church service, and heard a service in another language, and not always had access to the translation, perhaps, and yet, has felt a healing impact in that service. I think it’s because there is a language of Spirit, that if we’ll help each other feel and understand, and gratefully acknowledge, that there is such a thing as the language of Spirit, which is maybe more a feel than it is just some letters that form words that people speak from the pulpit, that even if a person doesn’t understand all of the words, they will feel the healing impact of Church. I’d say that might be something to pray about, the language of Spirit, and really trust that that language is going to bless, that that language is going to find a place in that individual’s heart. I understand the practical challenges there, but I think there are some spiritual answers.

spirituality.com host: Well, thank you, that’s very helpful. I’d just like to say to the people who are sending in questions to please try to keep your questions brief. Some of them are just way too long to read because it just takes too much time to read them, and they’re kind of complicated. So please try to keep your questions brief. Thank you. Sarah from Springfield, Missouri, says: What is your thinking about branch church membership doing charity work as a church activity?

Nate: Well, charity work. There are a lot of ways I could interpret that. What’s that old proverb that you can give a man a fish to eat, or you can teach him how to fish. If you teach him how to fish, the benefits are going to be more long-range. And that can be a very charitable thing to do, to teach somebody how to fish. I wouldn’t have any objection to somebody giving somebody a fish when they were hungry, but I would say don’t forget maybe a more important contribution you can make. And I’ve sort of seen that in the context of what our church contributes—to teach an individual how to heal, to teach an individual how to understand more about God’s nature, to teach an individual to grasp the unlimited nature of God’s supply. If our church can really teach those concepts, society is going to be better, than if we just give society some thing. Again, not there’s something wrong with giving something, it just has a lot of limitations to it.

When I look at how we can teach, we can start in the Sunday School. We might find ways to invite neighborhood children to come to the Sunday School so they can learn, for example, how to get along with their classmates in school. They can learn how to express more intelligence when they take an exam. I mean there are some wonderful things that our church has that you can teach others that, really, other churches aren’t doing. And other churches are making other kinds of contributions, but I guess I would see that as the highest kind of charity, not ruling out any particular approach to charity, but just being sure we don’t lose sight of the strongest, fullest kind of contribution we can make to society.

spirituality.com host: Well, another thing is that if a church did feel it wanted to give some things, for example, instead of just giving it, to back it up with prayer, supporting the whole activity with prayer.

Nate: Absolutely, yeah.

spirituality.com host: To lift it higher that way, too.

Nate: It’s very easy to do just the human thing, isn’t it? It takes a bit of discipline to do more of the spiritual thing, and I’ve always felt that’s what our church is good at. That we’ve got some measure of insight into how to help people discover spiritual truths, spiritual laws, that heal, that solve problems, that help lift people out of difficult circumstances. That’s a wonderful contribution to make, and I just sense that that’s probably the best one we’ll make.

spirituality.com host: Carol from St. Louis, Missouri, says: What is the difference between respecting church traditions and idolizing them? Or is the term tradition a material concept itself? On the other hand, I have seen some churches almost idolize the idea of change to prove that they are not stale. How do we determine what is true progress with regard to church services and practices?

Nate: You know, that’s probably going to come through experience and a lot of prayer. And churches wrestle through those very challenges. You know, the concept of tradition can be a very positive concept. We live in a country—those of us here in the United States, and many other countries—live in a country that democracy is our tradition. And I wouldn’t want to give that up for anything. That’s basic to my sense of how our society functions. So, tradition can have some very positive things. And I find that in church, too. There are some church traditions that I think are a great blessing to the congregation.

If we became so wedded to tradition, that we didn’t have our thought open to fresh ideas, innovative thoughts, healing ways of doing things, if we close off our view to ideas that others have who may feel that these things have come to them through prayer, I’d feel pretty badly about using tradition as an excuse not to do that, not to explore, not to talk together, and think about new possibilities. To some extent, it’s probably a balance. How to find a balance between what is truly useful, even if it’s just based on tradition, and what truly will move a church forward. If it’s an inspired idea, it may not happen right away, it may take a lot of prayer. Sometimes we have these patterns of thought that are pretty hard to break out of, but enough prayer, I’ve seen again and again, where enough prayer will waken thought, and churches can find their way forward.

But it’s an important issue. It really is. It’s too easy for the human mind to just get fixed in patterns. Whether it’s praying—I mean you can pray the Lord’s Prayer in a church service as a tradition and say the words and it can look OK maybe to an outsider that looks in and hear people praying, but if all they’re doing is going though a tradition, and they haven’t thought through and they’re not really trying to feel the significance of what’s behind those words, that tradition isn’t going to really bless the way it could if the spirit and the power was there. And I think the same thing is true in just lots of things we do in church.

There again, finding the ability to work together is probably more important than whether you go ahead and do something traditionally, or you try an innovative idea. I might lean a little on the side in a given instance of trying the innovative idea. And yet, if it comes through human will, if it comes through a lack of understanding and respect, sensitivity to those who don’t want to try that innovative idea, it probably isn’t going to have the blessing and the effect that it should have. So, how you get to your decision about whether to stay in the tradition, or whether you find your way forward with some innovative idea, how you do it probably is going to be more important than the step you’re taking.

spirituality.com host: Now we have a number of questions that I’d really like to get to, but we’ll have to go over the hour a bit. Can you stay a few more minutes?

Nate: I can, if our listeners can.

spirituality.com host: Great. Now this one will seem like it’s repeating some things we’ve covered, but I’d just like to do it because it’s from Uberlandia, Brazil. It’s Shelia who’s writing to us from there. She says: I learned about Christian Science while living in London about three years ago and enjoyed going to church and the Reading Room. But now the nearest church is about six hours away. I have been listening to the Sunday service live from Boston and it’s been great, but I still miss going to church. How shall I view this new moment in my life? And then there’s a second part, but I thought we could do this part first.

Nate: Well I think she’s doing exactly the right thing. Take advantage of what she has. It’s online; she’s able to listen to it. I’d enjoy and rejoice in and be grateful for that sense of Church. But I’d also open my thought to the possibility that church could begin to develop right where she is. I mean I know of examples where people have started cherishing the idea of just the human organization beginning to take root, and they found a friend, and they started reading the Lesson together. I know of one case where a couple of people were in this little community and they decided to start a Sunday School. That was going to be their first expression of Church. The community was only a couple hundred people, and there was no church there, so here was this Christian Science Sunday School, and within a year they had twenty-two kids in that Sunday School.

spirituality.com host: Wow, that’s neat.

Nate: They had a Presbyterian minister from another community who came and wanted to be a part of it because he felt some wonderful things were happening. So, maybe that’s what she can do, too, cherish that idea, to begin to blossom in a practical way.

spirituality.com host: Right, that sounds great. Now her P.S. is: My father asked me to send you a missionary down here. He is only now getting to know Christian Science and is eager to know more, and I was thinking that one of our missionaries is the Herald of Christian Science which is available in Portuguese. Do you have some further thoughts that you’d like to offer?

Nate: Gosh, you know, when a person has a vision about sharing this revelation, every possible way that it can be shared, I think it’s a wonderful opportunity. I think the Herald is a great way to begin, but I wouldn’t leave out the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. That’s a foundational way for someone to begin learning a little bit about these teachings. So, she does have some tools, and there are other translated articles, there are other books that are translated, so there are some tools for her to work with. But I think the key to it, is her spiritual, prayerful cherishing of the idea.

spirituality.com host: Yes. I just wanted to mention that the Herald of Christian Science is on our Website and you can explore some articles there as well.

Nate: One other thing before we get by that. I was just thinking of how often we have found in traveling around the world that groups have started, churches have started, people have become Christian Scientists because of healing. If she were to heal her next door neighbor, who happened to say to her, “Gosh, I’ve been having trouble with my kids,” maybe that person is really asking her for some help, like some prayer. If she were to heal someone who brings a problem to her, and then that person tells somebody else about how some prayer healed, pretty soon you’ve got a little group starting.

spirituality.com host: That’s right. And that was typical of the early Christian Science churches where the healing was the thing that brought people.

Nate: I think that’s really what got our Movement off the ground, and I think that’s what will keep it in the air.

spirituality.com host: Yep. Now this is Amy from Apopka, Florida, and she says: How can we encourage the Christian Science members to do the healing work naturally to anyone they come in contact with, instead of leaving the work only to Christian Science practitioners, or to wait until someone officially asks for their help? This gets back to the healing we were talking about.

Nate: It really does, and I see a connection between that question and the concept of Church. I think that Church can be a very healing power. Some people might think, “Well, church is where you go to have the service.” Well, sure, but if you look at that description we were talking about earlier, that Church is “The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle” (Science and Health, p. 583 ). If one begins to nurture that sense of Church in their consciousness, they’re going to find healing.

I think, Rosalie, of an example where a woman was having some difficulty in her branch church, and she was quite up in years, and I think getting a little frustrated with it, and over a period of time she became bedridden. Her relatives were not Christian Scientists, so they finally took her to the doctor, and they diagnosed the condition as a degenerative condition, that her back would not support her any longer. And they said she’d never walk again. She decided, even at her advanced years, she decided she was going to start praying about Church, because she had felt stressed about church. And she took that little phrase, “the structure of Truth and Love” and she thought, “OK, they say my structure’s in trouble, my back is deteriorating, and so on.” She said, “I’m going to pray about Church, ‘the structure of Truth and Love’ blessing my whole life, including my body.” And, you know, she walked again. The doctors could not believe it. Her relatives could not believe it. It came because she had a sense of Church that was right there, right in her bedroom, right where she was bedridden. So I wouldn’t put any limitations on the healing power of Church wherever we are—whether we’re sitting right there in a service, whether we’re at work or at school, wherever we may be.

spirituality.com host: And to be willing, if someone asks for help, to just say, “Of course, I’ll pray for you,” and not to be afraid.

Nate: Yes, and to be open to how a person might ask you. For a Christian Scientist, we have a lingo and we might say—we may call a Christian Science practitioner and say, “Would you give me a treatment?” or “Will you work for me?” and we’re talking about praying. If we’re expecting somebody to come to us and say, “Will you give me a Christian Science treatment?” they may never have heard of Christian Science. And yet, they may say, “You know, today, I’ve just got this stomach ache, and I’m having real trouble.” Maybe it’s at the office and they come over to your desk, and somebody says that to you. What they may really be saying without realizing it, “Would you pray for me?” I know a guy that has become kind of known when he was at this one industry, his office was kind of the prayer office, and people would go to him because he would pray a little bit for them, and people were healed. So we just want to be sure our thought is open and responsive to those that in one way or another are asking for help. That’s sort of taking Church right with you wherever you are.

spirituality.com host: That’s right. And her second question relates to what we were talking about, relating to the Reading Rooms. She says: Wasn’t there somewhere a requirement in the past that Reading Rooms should have a separate location than where the church services are held? Why has this changed? I thought we should clarify that.

Nate: Well, I don’t know if I know all the technical details. I do know that some churches have Reading Rooms right within their church edifice. But other churches have tried to find a place more as a part of the community. I think to the extent that a church really makes an effort to be part of the community, to be available to the community, to serve the community, they’re probably going to find themselves being a more substantial member of that little town or city. And so if we try to take a Reading Room back into the church just because we don’t feel it’s used enough, maybe we can’t afford it, I would sure hope we look for answers to issues like that before we kind of withdraw from the community.

spirituality.com host: Well, I think, too, that this may be part of what Amy’s asking, that she’s concerned that we’d be having services in the actual Reading Room. Many of the churches I’m aware of have a little separate space. They have it in the same place, but they have a separate space for where the services are held.

Nate: Right in the Reading Room you mean?

spirituality.com host: Right.

Nate: Yeah, that’s not unusual, really. And it can work pretty well, too. I think when we were talking earlier about a church where a building isn’t serving their needs anymore--I know of a number of churches where the Reading Room has been serving that purpose, as well as the traditional purpose of a Reading Room.

spirituality.com host: Yes. Jenny from Tustin, California says: Please tell us some suggestions for our Sunday School children--things to help encourage children to come to our church and learn with joy and inspiration. I thought that was a question we should address before we go.

Nate: You mean just about how to make their Sunday School more . . .

spirituality.com host: Inspiring.

Nate: Inspiring, and more, maybe, open to the community, more a kind of place where the kids that are going now would feel like they could invite their friends?

spirituality.com host: Yeah. Could I offer a thought on this?

Nate: Do, yeah.

spirituality.com host: I was a member of a church where the Sunday School Superintendent at every corporate meeting said to us that we were the ones who had to support the Sunday School. And he really sort of kept after us and really became something of a pest. He then laid out a challenge which was that each of us was required to bring a child to the Sunday School. And since I was single, and had no prospects of getting married, and I was alone in the city and didn’t have any young friends, I was like, “No, no!” But through an extraordinary series of events that would take too long to tell, I ended up spending some time with a number of young people. I never recall making comments about Sunday School, although we did talk about church, but this young woman actually showed up at our Sunday School, and told the Superintendent that she was there because of everything I had said about Sunday School. I guess what I’m trying to say is that within the church, to me—I’ve had this kind of thing with a number of Sunday School Superintendents at different branch churches—if the members are involved and really actively supporting the Sunday School in their prayers, and thinking about it, not as a separate entity somehow over there, but as part of the whole operation, I think that does help.

Nate: Absolutely. In fact, in the Church Manual that makes provision for our churches, Sunday School is part of that Manual. It’s not separate. It’s not in another book somewhere, it’s part of that activity of Church, and I’d agree with you, Rosalie. When a Sunday School is not flourishing, it really is the responsibility of the whole membership to make sure that something’s done to help nurture that Sunday School back to health. It’s just like the body. You can’t say to the foot or the hand, Oh, well, that’s clear off, one of the extremities. If the body is not functioning right, you have to help it. It’s too easy to think, “Well, that’s the Sunday School; we’ve got other things to do in the church.” No, I think you’re right on target there.

spirituality.com host: Great, thank you. Well, we thank you all for coming. I wondered, Nate, if you would have something you’d like to close with, some further comment?

Nate: Oh, goodness. I think of a statement that Mary Baker Eddy made in her book,Science and Health, and it has to do with joining the Church. In fact, let me just pull it up here, and read it, so that I’ll get it right. Because I remember sitting in church one time, and an invitation was read to join the church, and I’ll tell you what I thought. I thought, it’s OK to read that, but I think everybody in that service that day all ready was a member of that church. And I thought we didn’t really need to read it. And then I thought of this statement. It comes out of Science and Health: “We can unite with this church only as we are newborn of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love,—casting out error and healing the sick” (p. 35 ). Well what I began to realize is that how many people really were a member of that church? I was. I mean I had my name on the line, but was I joining the church, was I uniting with the church? According to what Mrs. Eddy says here, that’s an ongoing activity, and I thought that’s really what that invitation is. It applies to me as well as it does anyone else.

So I guess if there were any one thought I might leave with people it’s that if you think you’re a member of the church, think again. That’s day by day, and you’ve almost got to ask yourself, “Have I joined the church today, have I really united with the church today in the two ways Mrs. Eddy mentions—being newborn of Spirit, healing the sick? We need to think about that. If I’m not a member of the church, I would say definitely be thinking about joining. And maybe you can start right there with a little bit of the new Spirit, a little bit of the healing. But it’s something for all of us.

spirituality.com host: Thank you so much. I’m so glad you could be here.