Annual Meeting has become a wonderful gathering.
It's a time for our worldwide church family to come together
and it's really special because you get to see people
from all over the country, all over the world,
and see how they're practicing Christian Science in their lives,
and it just fills you up full.
The ways The Mother Church is reaching out around the world,
how we are all a part of this.
And that it's really a gathering of love,
where people reconnect with maybe people who are far-flung.
So it's very exciting to be at the home of Christian Science.
We went and did the dancing.
Oh, we also did a scavenger hunt with a lot of new people.
Yeah, it was a really great night.
And I loved seeing all the young faces and just feeling really at home there.
The crowd was full and it was laughing and it was clapping.
We all went to a meeting with the Board
and we went in the Original Edifice.
That was really cool.
It's beautiful in there.
These people, there's joy in their work
and there's joy shared amongst each other.
I think that was the coolest part.
It was just full of joy and full of love and warmth
and you could tell as everyone engaged in the conversation that they're here
and they're present and ready for church.
Welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of The Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.
The theme of this year's Annual Meeting of The Mother Church is,
"As you work, the ages win; ..."
Church is so much more than a place to go on Sunday.
Church is what God is doing with us.
To anyone else here for whom this is your first opportunity to attend Annual Meeting,
we want to say that we hope you like the church you're seeing
because it's yours.
Work is a tangible, demonstrable thing that we do
by studying our textbooks, working with the pastor,
going to church, and then healing.
Where else can you go to feel loved and to give?
And what better place to give than at church?
Spending the week in prayer, thinking about what will speak to a student
and enliven their practice, when they get excited about that or they feel touched by that,
then getting to do God's work
and getting to be an instrument of the Christ.
I just love the community that I have in every single church
because I've moved around a lot, but every time I come to a new church
it's like I'm home with family.
Our theme doesn't say, "If you work" or "When you work"
but "As you work, the ages win; ..."
Let's know that we are enabled and empowered by the Christ,
by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, Divine Science,
to do the winning work that God requires of us all.