Spiritual Education for All
Beginning in 2012 I had the privilege of serving as superintendent for the Christian Science Sunday School of The Mother Church in Boston. Here’s an interview published in The Christian Science Journal about the activity. The interview begins with this intro:
A devotion to helping youth. A devotion to Christian Science. Those two motivations are obvious when you speak with Mark Unger about his work. A Christian Science practitioner from Ashland, Massachusetts, Mark was appointed Superintendent of The Mother Church Sunday School in 2012. His background includes longtime Sunday School teaching, speaking with young people in jails and juvenile detention centers, and giving talks for Christian Science Organizations on college campuses. Over the past several decades, he’s helped out in youth-related capacities in more ways than we can list. We decided to sit down with Mark to ask what’s happening in The Mother Church Sunday School today, and to learn what he sees as the significance of Sunday School. And, no surprise. He didn’t mind making time for this conversation one bit!
“Mark, how would you describe your role as Superintendent of The Mother Church Sunday School?
Funny you should ask, because that was one of the first things I had to ask myself after accepting this position, “What is my role here?” I mean we’ve got the helpful Church Manual provisions about Sunday School from Mary Baker Eddy (pp. 62–63), but how should I think about my role, really? And one of the first things I realized is that I’m here to serve. I’m here to serve the teachers—you know, “wash their feet” (see John 13), be the servant like Jesus taught us to be. If I can support and help the teachers, to me, that is the best thing I can do for the kids—that and making sure the mission of the Sunday School is fulfilled.
I ran across this Bible passage one week. It’s in Matthew 20:25–28, where Jesus calls his disciples to him and he says: “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” So, I really try to take this spirit of humility to heart.
You can read the rest of the article here.
