From a Post on TMC Youth

I am Christian Science, but I joined a Congregational Church so that I can have a normal, happy , joyous, praise filled worship experience with my neighbors, like other Christians. I can study and practice CS, and still go to another church where you can feel people are joyously praising the Living God, and fellowshipping with passion and excitement!To people walking in the door to our churches, Christian Science worships feel stiff, frozen, artifical, FORMAL, intellectual, unnatural, unhuman and blocking the heart. When is change needed? When churches are folding-up across the nation and only few young people are left. When the denomination is almost extinct. It's time to put the truth in a better "package". Currently, it's in a coffin headed for the cemetary. One of our large churches recently sold because there were very few "Scientists" left. An evangelical denomination bought the building and the parking lot is filled with cars all week long."Scientists" hesitatingly ask if they might explore tip-toeingly into warming things up step by step. The answer is a resounding "YES! Make big changes and fast!"Why? Because the planet will not be left inhabitable in a few decades unless mankind spiritualizes it's thought. God needs us to make CS worship "people-friendly". We must make our worships satisfying and relevant to the average person, not just to the group who is happy engaging only the intellectual processing part of their "left brains". People have both social and emotional needs. We are supposed to be "meeting the human need" if we are worshipping the right God. Are we? If we were doing that, people would be coming to our worships. They aren't. We got off-track somewhere along the line. Maybe in making an "idol" out of the order of worship and elininating the Holy Spirit. The "letter of the law" should never extinguish the "spirit of the law".

SOME HAVE COME ALIVE AGAIN!!! I visited the SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO SOCIETY while I was traveling. YES!!! YES!!! And a hundred times "YES!" Check out their videos! It was warm, wonderful and above all "normal". They did everything that all CS churches have traditionally done, but they did things in the friendly ways that other Christian churches do. It felt natural and normal. I hope that other churches will follow their example, of letting the Spirit back in, each in their own way. And I am glad that the Mother Church is allowing everyone to peek into their experience on this site.If you are a Christian Scientists who is happy with how our sparsely attended worship services are conducted, then you need to visit a few evangelical churches and see where your neighbors are going and why. Or visit a progressive CS church. But for the average citizen to walk into one of our Sunday worships, what we do looks just plain wierd to them. Stiff memorized statements preceed our rigid skeleton of order of services, and there is no human heart. It appears as if "Scientists" fear some great heirarchy of demons will befall them if they speak as humans or neighbors with any feelings.

CS has to stop being strange and impersonal. Mankind needs what we have.Do not tell me that "the church has done it's job" and that truth has been assimilated across the culture. It has not! New churches are springing-up with hand clapping gospel music (that part is good! ), and rapidly changing New Age theology. This "new metaphysics" is a mutation of Christianity and CS. They use our language, but there is rarely a place for Jesus in it. They often worship "divine self" instead of God the Source. CS birthed the metaphysical movement into being, and it has to recover it's role in shaping society's spiritual growth. We must learn to be relevant to society once again. We have dropped out of the game. We do not know what our neighbors think. We need to jump back in. I'm glad that some churches and societies are doing that.Dave C., Montana

New Q&A segment

I'm thinking about making a weekly Q&A discussing the difference between the "culture" of Christian Science vs the truth of it. I would love to have people dialog with me on the issues that bother them the most about the CS church. I will research the issue and share the results with all of you. Let me know what you think of this idea. Especially send me your issues so I can get started.