TeenConnect: My church
March 19, 2024
How Christian Science Sunday School changed my life
Would my life be the same had I never gone to Sunday School? No, frankly, it wouldn’t be. In fact, Christian Science Sunday School was in many ways a totally life-changing experience.
I had spent the entire summer of my high school junior year learning as much as I could about Canada and the United States in world affairs. This was a topic given to each high school junior in my home state of Kansas, with the opportunity to be selected to represent Kansas in a visit to Canada to meet top officials. I took the assignment very seriously and became one of three final candidates.
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Our final speeches were happening on a Monday. By Sunday, I was a basket case. I’d never given a speech before; the other candidates were all top debaters; and the judges were our state’s leaders.
My Sunday School teacher saw my distress and asked what was wrong. I told her of my fear of total failure.
As always, I went to Sunday School. My teacher saw my distress and asked what was wrong. When I told her of my fear of total failure, she handed me a copy of the Christian Science Hymnal and asked me to read Hymn 354. I didn’t remember ever having read that hymn before, but from that day I knew I would never forget it:
’Tis God the Spirit leads
In paths before unknown;
The work to be performed is ours,
The strength is all His own.
Supported by His grace,
We still pursue our way;
Assured that we shall reach the prize,
Secure in endless day.
God works in us to will,
He works in us to do;
His is the power by which we act,
His be the glory too.
(Benjamin Beddome, adapt.)
That hymn changed everything for me. I knew—knew without a doubt—that God was the source of everything I was doing. God was cause, I was effect. Every talent I expressed, every idea I needed, came from Him—not me. It was a total shift in the way I viewed my identity and my gifts.
Sunday School helped me discover who I really am—my spiritual identity—and the freedom that comes with living from that basis.
I won! I returned from Canada with a story to tell: a story of two large countries with an open border between them. After that, I gave speeches about our mutual alliances, then received a speech scholarship to college and a fellowship to grad school. All that was followed by a lifetime of talking to audiences—joyfully and fearlessly.
That’s cutting the story short, but let’s just say Sunday School was a super life-changing experience. It helped me discover who I really am—my spiritual identity—and the freedom that comes with living from that basis.