Archive for January, 2010

As we start our Youth and Sunday School Blog – I thought I’d share some ideas on this week’s Bible lesson -we’ll try and do this every week.

The subject of this week’s Bible Lesson is “Love” – the 26 subjects for the lesson were choosen by the Churches founder, Mary Baker Eddy and they are repeat twice each year. The subjects may be the same, but every Lesson is unique – so it is always good to look for the sub-theme – and the Golden Text – always gives and indication of what this might be. This week is all about God’s “tender mercies” – how many times does the phrase appear in the lesson? Look out for the way this idea appears throughout the lesson. The theme is illustrated with the life or Saul/Paul.

Tender Merriam Websters online dicctionary defines tender in part  as

: marked by, responding to, or expressing the softer emotions : fond, loving <a tender lover>
4 a : showing care : considerate, solicitous <tender regard> b : highly susceptible to impressions or emotions : impressionable <a tender conscience>
5 a : appropriate or conducive to a delicate or sensitive constitution or character : gentle, mild <tender breeding> <tender irony> b : delicate or soft in quality or tone <never before heard the piano sound so tender — Elva S. Daniels>
6 obsolete : dear, precious

The First Section of the Lesson – helps us to understand God’s nature as Love and his tenderness better. Here we learn of God as Father and Mother.

It’s appropriate that Jane is taking the class this week! She gives lectures around the UK and overseas on “God’s Fathering and Mother in our lives.” as a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.

The second section of the Lesson begins our exploration of the life of Paul, tough in this section he is still called Saul. Here we see how God’s tender mercies “blot out [] transgressions” and “divine Love corrects and governs man” – and wow ! If Saul can be transformed, anyone can!

What’s more we see how by mastering “mortal beliefs, animality and hate” we can rejoice in “the proof of heailng – in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love.” (S&H 569:11-3)

That’s all I have time for now, but enjoy exploring the lesson this week and have wonderful time exploring these and other  ideas from the lesson on Sunday! And bring any questions you have…

Daniel

PS every week there is always an article on the lesson on spirituality.com this week’s can be read online now!

Welcome to our blog!

This is the first post in our new Youth and Sunday School Blog. We’ll be blogging about what we are doing in Sunday School, and hope to post some pictures from the younger children, and share what we are doing with the older classes.

Arleen – Sunday School Superindendent

At an emergency meeting on Sunday, the members voted to send a donation to Haiti.

Continuing to pray for Haiti

New articles, interviews and other resources for praying about Haiti are available online:

  • The “Healing” resource page on ChristianScience.com.
  • A conversation in French with Mabiala Mavungu, C.S., at Le Héraut de la Science Chrétienne website, www.leherautsc.com, Click on MP3 to hear «Haïti, sous l’aile de l’Amour divin.»
  • Inspirational messages from members of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship in the “Daily Lifts.” Several of the messages in support of Haiti are also available in French. Your customers may be interested in both listening and adding their comments.

This just in from The TMC Youth Newsletter:

TMC Youth – Sunday Schools
Bulletin January 2009

SUNDAY SCHOOL ROUNDTABLE CHATS
A series of live Web chats sponsored by TMC Youth

Teach with Questions? How??
With Susie Jostyn, Mark Unger, and guests from around the world
Monday, January 25, 2010, 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Eastern (Boston) Time

Join us for another interactive, multi-media event connecting Sunday School students, teachers,and superintendents from around the world!

What kinds of questions are appropriate for a Sunday School class? Which ones make a class more interactive, enriching, and worthwhile?  How can you invite the most challenging ones … and trust that there will be a good answer?  If you have questions about questions that comply with the Church Manual provisions for Sunday School, send them in advance or pose them live during this event.

Susie Jostyn will host Sunday School teacher Mark Unger and representatives from an entire team of Sunday School teachers in South Africa who have been thinking together about this topic.

Questions can be sent in live online in English at tmcyouth.com.

If you can’t join the chat, you can post questions beforehand in the Sunday School Discussion Forum on the website and listen to the recorded chat afterward.

For more information, visit our Sunday School Rountable Chat page.

Please share the information in this bulletin as widely as possible.

Hymns- 278, 208, 109

The Readings at our Wednesday Testimony meetings are taken from the King James Version of the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

The following are the readings from our meeting on 20th January 2010 — the topic was Home / Security.

Bible

Ps 27:1, 3-8
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

Ps 91:1, 9-11
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

Ps 139: 1-3, 7-11
O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

ps 16: 5,6, 8-11
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.

I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

ps 17: 6,8,15
I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.

Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

ps 18:28, 32, 35
For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.

Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.

Is 33:20, 24
Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.

And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.

John 14: 1,2,27
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Matt 7:24-29

Matt 7:24-29

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Matt 18:20
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

And From:

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

S&H 58:21-23
Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections.

S&H 587: 25-27 Heaven
HEAVEN. Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul.

S&H 242:9-14
There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality — to have no other consciousness of life — than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses.

S&H 11: 22-31
We know that a desire for holiness is requisite in order to gain holiness; but if we desire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it. We must be willing to do this, that we may walk securely in the only practical road to holiness. Prayer cannot change the unalterable Truth, nor can prayer alone give us an understanding of Truth; but prayer, coupled with a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God, will bring us into all Truth.

S&H 264: 7-19, 24-31
Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind? We must look where we would walk, and we must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being.
As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.

Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.
When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man’s spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God’s creation, — all the glories of earth and heaven and man.

S&H 265: 10-15, 23-26
This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man’s absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.

Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not gained stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after heavenly good comes even before we discover what belongs to wisdom and Love.

S&H 480: 1-5
When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not, evil becomes nothing, — the opposite of the something of Spirit.

S&H 190: 21-31
The Hebrew bard, swayed by mortal thoughts, thus swept his lyre with saddening strains on human existence:
As for man, his days are as grass: As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more.
When hope rose higher in the human heart, he sang:
As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.
. . . . . . . For with Thee is the fountain of life; In Thy light shall we see light.

S&H 598: 23-24
One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity.

S&H 577: 32-18
In the following Psalm one word shows, though faintly, the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures by substituting for the corporeal sense, the incorporeal or spiritual sense of Deity: —
Psalm XXIII

[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want.
[LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters.
[LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [LOVE] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE'S] rod and [LOVE'S] staff they comfort me.
[LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.

S&H 254: 31-32
Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.

As a church we are thinking and praying about Haiti, and we thought our members and site visitors would be interested in the resources our global church has put together to help us in our prayers.

You can find these listed on ChristianScience.com