People who read Mary Baker Eddy’s Church Manual are often struck by how lean it is – so few rules for governing a worldwide organization. But Christian Science has never been focused on accumulating procedures, but on pioneering a movement to restore Christian healing to church experience. On the frontier, you only take what you need and what you know will help you move forward.

This Manual provides a minimal framework that safeguards members and churches from whatever would keep them from their core purpose of healing. Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Of this I am sure, that each Rule and By-law in this Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany).