The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, MA | Christianity

The First Church of Christ, Scientist

Christian Science, as discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, refers to the universal, practical system of spiritual, prayer-based healing, available and accessible to everyone. - Christian Science is fully explained in Eddy’s primary text on spirituality and healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. - Membership in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, is not a prerequisite for the practice of Christian Science. - A means of spiritual care through which individuals have found better emotional and physical health, answers to life’s deepest issues and progress on their spiritual journeys. Healthcare decisions are always a matter of individual choice. - Basic ideas include: - God is divine Love, Father-Mother, supreme. - The true nature of each individual as a child of God is spiritual. - God’s infinite goodness, realized in prayer, heals. After publication in 1875 of Science and Health, Eddy’s primary work on spirituality and healing, readers began meeting to discuss the ideas and share their healing results. Then, in 1879, Eddy established what became The First Church of Christ, Scientist (The Mother Church). The Church is designed "to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." (Church Manual, page 17). Eddy had a lifelong reverence for the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and a deep desire that his healing works be universally practiced. It consists of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, and around 2,000 branch churches and societies of Christ, Scientist, worldwide. The Church has no ordained clergy. In 1895, Eddy named the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as Pastor for worldwide Churches of Christ, Scientist.

Sunday services offer congregants a healing environment, anchored by a weekly Bible Lesson-Sermon with excerpts from the Bible and Science and Health. Services also include prayer, hymn singing, and a solo. A collection will be taken.
Sunday School is provided for children and young people up to the age of 20. It is a place for them to learn about their relationship to a loving God through explanation of the ideas in the Bible and Science and Health.
Wednesday testimonial meetings include readings from the Bible and Science and Health. Attendees participate by sharing accounts of healing and spiritual insights. The meeting also includes prayer and hymn singing.