The reading in Christian Science Church Services is fundamentally important to the prosperity of the Christian Science movement. Our Leader speaks of "the reading of the Sunday lesson,--a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends" Church Manual p.31. Every reader can do better, because the potential for doing better is infinite, because the Word of God, and of divine Science, which is being read, is Truth, and is itself infinite in scope, in beauty, in magnificence, in profound spiritual meaning, in healing power, in color, in drama, and in which no least detail is unimportant. The challenge and opportunity is to so read that all of these things are felt in some significant measure by the reader while reading, and by the congregations, including newcomers, who will be attracted by the excitement and deep-lying satisfaction generated by such reading.

The obverse of the above statements about reading better is also true -- our current best is always acceptable because God never asks more of us than that of which we are currently capable.

Let's start with a few fundamental guidelines I have found of great help in keeping myself free from such things as self-consciousness or self-doubt.

1. Listen to the Word as you are reading it, as if you were a member of the congregation. Indeed, aren't we, as we read? This will enable you to read the Word as you would like to have it read to your hungering heart. Because if your hungering heart is fed, as you read, the congregation will also be fed. This will also free you to read as you would like to read, instead of how you may be tempted to feel you ought to read.

Listen, as you are reading, to each word, and take time to savor the beauty of the Word, and its full significance, so far as you can perceive it in the moment, for that will ensure that the congregation will also have the time to savor what you are perceiving, as well as what they may be perceiving that you don't, because each one of us is individual in where we are in our spiritual journey.

2. Read with the authority of the Word, and with the authority of the office of Reader, not with any sense of personal authority or the lack thereof. This is all the authority we will ever need, and of course, it comes from God, moment by moment as we may need it, by reflection and by expression of God's nature, which is what we all are as children of God, made in His image and likeness.

Another way of putting it is: look to the Word itself, and the meaning inherent therein, for any authority you may need.

3. A clear understanding of our purposes in reading in CS church services is fundamentally important. Here are a few such purposes:

• To do justice (as well as we are able) to the meanings intended by God, by the authors, and by the Lesson-Sermon Committee which puts the various citations in proximity and sequence. To communicate those meanings as faithfully as we can in our reading.


• To read so that every word can be heard distinctly by everyone in the congregation, including those who may hear less well (to sense). Here are a few ways to accomplish this:


• Bear in mind that every word is precious, no word is unimportant, even the insignificant words deserve to be distinctly heard--this is ultimately a question of articulation.


• Put the slightest bit of space between each word, but not the same space between all words.


• Read with sufficient volume--control voice production from the diaphragm muscle.


• Read with authority.


• To avoid sameness in pace, stress, contrast, intonation, volume, pause, voice quality. All of these need to be varied so as to maintain interest and attentiveness on the part of the congregation. But this variation occurs naturally as we simply seek to convey the meaning we are seeing, feeling, loving, and enjoying.. We do not read strings of words; we read, and communicate, meaning and feeling and atmosphere. And how we use stress, contrast, intonation, and pause not only communicates meaning, but also chooses between alternate meanings possible from the same sets of words.

Note: More is to come, but I thought it worthwhile to put up this much while I'm developing more.

To come:

Pause, tempo, and phrasing.
Emphasis--on important ideas, on contrast, and on new versus old.
Story telling mode for reading stories or parables or allegories.
Mrs. Eddy's desire that "emphasis, pause, tone [be] according to
      conversation."
Additional logical principles and conversational patterns of speech.
My debt to Nedra Newkirk Lamar's How to Speak the Written Word,
      and to her eloquent associate Barbara Clark.