Need Prayer? Call The Prayer Chain

On Monday, October 12, Unity in Silver Spring's "Prayer Chain" will be up and running. A pdf flier will be emailed to you this week. In a nutshell:

• You can call the dedicated "prayer line" at (301) 362-6520, or you can e-mail your prayer request at prayerworksunity@gmail.com Our dedicated prayer team will respond to your requests. All matters are kept confidential.

Children's Church

The Children's Church got off to a great start this past Sunday. The children enjoyed it, and they learned something. Perhaps I seem a little too excited about the Children's Church, but you know it's been a long time coming. And what's more fascinating is that the coordinator, Tiffany Manuel, seems as excited about it as I am.

Tiffany is making an effort to echo the Sunday message in a child friendly way each week. Sometimes this may not happen as a more appropriate lesson is being taught. Know this, your child is learning something that prepares them to live powerfully.

Our Tithes

This month our tithe goes to the Association of Unity Churches, and Silent Unity. Knowing that our supply is constant and infinite, we gladly release this tithe. Thanks to all of you who contribute to the power-filled ministry of Unity in Silver Spring.

Parents and Caretakers of the Children

As you know, we start the Children's Church this Sunday. Tiffany and I were talking about the how's and how to's of this activity and we agreed to bring the children back into the service during the Tithes and Offerings so that they may get accustomed to the giving and tithing. Please give your child something to put into the offering bag. Thanks to all of you for supporting our Children's Church.

Children's Church

On Sunday, October 4, we will finally begin the first phase of our Children's Church Program. Dr. Tiffany Manuel will be helping us launch this program. Tiffany, as our have frequently pointed out, grew up in Unity and knows the potential of a good children's program.

Parents and concerned adults, Tiffany will need your help. First, there will be Sundays when she cannot be present. We will need backup leaders. Second, we need you to get your children to church to participate in the program. When I am apprised of other requirements, I will let you know.

Sermon Recap--On Baptism

The purpose of Sunday's sermon was to give you a brief history of Christian baptism and then move on to the spiritual significance of this sermon. The highlights are as follows:

• In the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist mentions two baptisms: (1) baptism unto repentance and (2) the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The first is a requirement for the latter, but both are necessary.
• The more correct translation of the phrase"baptism unto repentance" is "baptism because of your repentance." In other words the water baptism was a visible symbol of the repentant heart.
• The repentant heart (or mind) is when the life focus changes from getting and acquiring things to having a conscious experience and understanding of God.
• The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the REVELATION OF THE ALLNESS OF GOD. This baptism only happens when the prayer is knowing God just for the thrill and glory of knowing God. When the desire to know God is for a healing or changing of conditions, it is a sure sign that the baptism of repentance never occurred.
• Is baptism necessary? Yes, but not as an institutional ritual. It is all a matter of Consciousness.

Time Is Not A Power

Many years ago, I went to hear Ruth Jenks speak. It was after, what some have called, her miraculous healing. In this article, Ms. Jenks writes about time. Click

Partnership With Mystics Of The World

For those of you who are not comfortable with ebooks, or internet buying, Denice Jutras of Mystics Of The World is now carrying spiral bound copies of my new book. You can call to order at 207-748-0938.

Or online, http://mysticsoftheworld.com/

Sermon Summary--Thinking

Some said that this was one of the best sermons--ever. If you weren't there, you have to buy the CD and decide for yourself. Here's a summary:

• Spiritual progress has seemed to be a slow, never ending, and never get there process for most folk. Why? Because the kind of mind they are trying to enlighten is an insubstantial mind. Yes, I'm referring to the human mind.
• There is only ONE MIND. This Mind is already enlightened. It is Light itself. This already illumined Mind is your Mind. It is your only Mind.
• The mind that most folk have tried to enlighten is the human mind. The human mind is to the Divine Mind like the shadow of a tree is to the real tree. The shadow tree is not the real tree. It can bear no fruit. It is insubstantial. In order for the shadow tree to even seem to be, there must be a real tree.
• The only way you can have a human sense of Mind is because the Divine Mind actually exists as your mind.
• What is necessary is to recognize, accept and acknowledge the enlighten Mind to be yours right now.
• Instead of studying spirituality as you would study academics --intellectually--turn within to your Mind for light. Seek answers from Mind. Wait patiently to be "God taught."
• "It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" of spiritual illumination. It is the nature of Divine Mind to reveal itself to be your only mind.

Spiritual Healing--Sermon Summary

This sermon was not recorded, so I will summarize it in more detail than usual.

Keep in mind that Christ Jesus self-professed mission was to bear witness to Truth. In every healing miracle of Christ Jesus, there was one constant: The so-called disease left and the Body remained. Why? Because there is no truth (reality) in disease, but the BODY IS REAL.

Your BODY is not only real, it is constituted of the Substance of God's Presence. There are many religions that say the body is not real, but this is not in keeping with Jesus' ministry or his miracles.

God's will for you is PERFECT HEALTH.

Remember the denial from the Unity textbook Lessons In Truth: "Pain, sickness, poverty, old age, and death cannot master me because they are not real."

Disease is like a smoke alarm that alerts you to get out of the house. Disease is an alert telling you to move up higher in your understanding of God's Presence and Power. When you are clear on this, you never approach body disease at the level of the body; instead, you approach it from the level of God awareness.

Spiritual healing is the only healing that has nothing to do with the body in practice, but has everything to do with the body in effect.

Stop talking about your disease. Stop identifying yourself with it. Stop identifying yourself with the prognosis. (I know that's a hard one, but you ARE THE POWER that can do this).

The right prayer for any seeming disease is: "God, in this seeming situation (name it if you want to),what is it about your Presence and your Power that I need to understand?"

You may not get your answer right away. Nevertheless, keep at it until you get your answer. You will know when it is your answer. The fears and the tears leave when the answer "arrives." At this point, you are no longer concerned about the seeming disease. Your revelation is your Truth, and the disease is revealed to be a lie.

STAND BY YOUR REVELATION. This will be easier than you think, because truth is no longer a mere speculation.

Simply put, spiritual healing is the knowing and showing of God's wholeness right where disease seems to be. You take care of the knowing and the knowing takes care of the showing.

Sermon Summary (Prosperity)

• The challenge of approaching your finances spiritually is that your source (God) seems invisible to the human eye. However, the economic mess the world appears to be in is due to trusting in "visible" sources.
• The chief requirement in the spiritual approach to financial prosperity is an understanding of Divine Substance--God. "For of Him, to Him and through Him are all things." Read about Divine Substance, and put the ideas you read about into practice immediately. Or take the matter into the prayer closet asking for understanding of Divine Substance. Whatever you "hear," put into practice immediately by acknowleding this Truth to be your present reality
• Divine Substance responds to your faith in it and knowledge of it.
• Because God is both the Substance and Source of your financial prosperity, whatever is true of God is true of your financial prosperity. You know that God is infinite and inexhaustible. So are your finances. God is unconditioned. Your finances are immune to so-called human situations and economic cycles.
• When you seem to be concerned about your finances, (1)turn away from the appearance of lack. (2) Don't try to shuffle around the visible in the attempt to force your supply to appear. (3) Turn to whatever understanding of Divine Substance you have and STAND FIRM on it--nothing wavering.

New Wine New Bottles (Sermon summary)

As I considered how to summarize Sunday's sermon in the best way, I realized that (if you heard it) I would have to eliminate many good points to get to the essential points. Here they are:

1. If you want to experience a real new year, that doesn't look like an identical twin of your other years, you are going to have to drink new wine (spiritual insight) from new bottles (mindset).
2. When new insight comes "to" you, that idea must replace the old idea it relates to. Otherwise, it will not seem to bear fruit in your life. For example: If the idea flashes in your Consciousness, "God is my body, it can't be sick," that idea has to replace the old host of ideas you have entertained throughout the years.
3. Those ideas might include: (a) identifying yourself with a disease ("cancer patient"), (b)the doctor's prognosis, (c) age as an excuse for aches and pains (d) deliberate actions to avoid disease, (e) judging the body by the apperance of having a disease, etc.
4. Christ Jesus said, "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, lest the bottles break and the wine is spilled." In other words, if some new insight strikes a responsive chord in you, it will not bear fruit in your life if you are holding on to old, conflicting ideas.
5. Much of what appears to be Truth "not working" is the result of trying to embrace the new while holding on to the old.

Sermon Review (Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008)

I am only going to summarize one section of Sunday's sermon: Getting The Most Out Of Your Reading.

STEP 1	Begin with the introduction of the book. Continue reading until some idea inspires and motivates you. Mark the page and STOP READING.
STEP 2	Make a decision to implement that idea in your life every day for one week.
STEP 3	Continue reading, from where you left off, until you find another idea that motivates, excites and or inspires you. Mark the page and STOP READING.
STEP 4	Repeat Step #2

It may take you an entire year to get through one book, but you will have lived that book rather than merely read the book. Furthermore, you will experience the practical power of those ideas because you are putting them into action. You can apply this same formula to a Sunday sermon. Simply take the one idea that inspires you the most and live it until next Sunday. A sermon lived is far better than a sermon preached.

Highlighting Hopkins On-Healing

To be seized with the idea that a man needs healing is to be seized with an accusation against him. He does not need healing. You need to drop an imagination. You need to stop accusing the son of God of being unwholesome. As God pronounced the man good there must be something ailing your ideas if you do not see him as God sees him. The whole secret of healing is to see no disease in anyone because God sees none. Who shall save us from our disease except Him that seeth no disease in us.

Highlighting Hopkins-It's All Good

Again, I started this series so that you can see the lessons the founders of Unity received from Emma Curtis Hopkins. Remember her writing style is typical of the late 1800's

Another topic that the mind is not to descend into thinking or the voice into speaking about, is that there is anything against anyone or anything. Whoever says opium is dangerous, or compositions of minerals are offensive, is descending from the ideal reasonings of God, who pronounced all things good. No one shall speak against the climate, the draughts, the actions of earth's creatures, for he who would see them good must think along the thoughts of God. We shall not permit the lowering of the mind's holy reasonings into the thought or the talk of sin in the world or in ourselves. Sin is not a theme we can give any thought to. Many a good reasoner in Science wonders why his thoughts do not live and thrive at the harbors of demonstration where he halted them. He may remember that yesterday or last week, he descended into the idea of the selfishness of Mary, or the jealousy of James, or his own temper gave him regret. A fall of the barometer of reasoning must chill the delicate process of demonstration.

Sermon Summary--The Economy

• If you are feeling fearful about the economy, remember "God has not given you the spirit of fear..." As there is no fear in God and no God in fear, the fear that you seem to feel can't be and is not real.
• More money in an anxiety-ridden hand is like having no money at all. The first order of business is not getting more money; but rather experiencing the PEACE that is native to your God nature. "Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." Keep your mind stayed on the highest Truth(s) of God you know (or have faith in).
• Read over the promises of God in the Bible. They apply to you, since God is no respecter of persons. Do a Google search for "promises of God" in quotation marks. There is a good one that lists the promises of God by category. Read them slowly.
• All economic theories are based on the fictitious notion that there is not enough. All you need to know about "not enough" is that it is a LIE about MORE THAN ENOUGH. Infinity is the measure of existence. As God is the Substance of all Form, for there to really be not enough, there would have to be a shortage of God--Infinity.
• All it takes is just 1 person to turn their eyes away from the appearance of lack and FOCUS on God's Infinite Substance to see the evidence of God's Abundance. And it helps to turn your ears away too.

Highlighting E.C. Hopkins-No Suffering

It is related of a soldier in the East Indies that his comrades threw a basin of hot soup into his bosom to test his patience after his conversion to Christianity. He had been a prize-fighter, and they hoped he would fight at this insult. He, however, looked up calmly and said, "This is what I must expect if I become a Christian." Well, who taught him to "seek and find" such things as that? Was he not rather bending like a reed under the wind of a popular opinion of the Christian walk than standing straight up like a pillar of faith with the early proclamation, "I do not believe in violence and hardship?" "They that seek Me early shall find Me." Who is this "Me" the soldier might have found? "The Prince of Peace." He had a right to the peace of God. Does God suffer? Then remember it is not Godlike to suffer. Those who are most like God suffer least.

Highlighting Hopkins--Truths To Contemplate

(by Emma Curtis Hopkins teacher of the Fillmores)

Has anyone found himself glad to be told that reformatories and prisons are no use because they are founded on a belief that in God's house there is evil? In Truth there are no criminals. In Spirit there is no need of prisons and reformatories. Spirit and Truth are all. Shall we then close up our prisons and reformatories? Our first duty is to know the truth about them. "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free." It is not for you to touch externals. You are to know what is true. This is your whole business in life. Knowledge of Truth is its own demonstration. All things are coming to the world by its knowledge of Truth. It is considered a virtue by some people to build hospitals and schools for the carrying out of man's belief in the absence of God. It is not virtue. It is better to enter into the closet and be still to know God. God is Truth; Truth will redeem the nations from pain. Therefore speak Truth. Truth is peace. Therefore speak Truth.

Highlighting Hopkins--Human Will

I've decided to add the "Highlighting Hopkins" column to our blog. The Hopkins I'm referring to is Emma Curtis Hopkins, the teacher of Unity's founders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore. My purpose is to give you a glimpse of the teachings they received during their coursework with Ms. Hopkins. Below is from one of her Bible studies.

Some people are not honestly interested in the Science of Spirit for a long time. Their thoughts are all wound and twisted around material things. They only think of the Spiritual teaching in the hope to get material gains of some kind. Now, for a long time the most extraordinary blessings attend them. Their eyes are healed. Their backs are strengthened. Their families are healthy. But there is one thing that still seems to refuse to yield to all their thoughts about Spirit. They were so filled with hope at first that they rather ignored that one unchanged condition. But by and by it is thrust uppermost in their mind and thy actually feel cross at the Science for not fixing up that one point. This unmanageable condition stands for the human will. That human will is still set to material issues. It is cross-grained to Spirit. Here is an affair that never will to the way you want it. Your want must be changed; for the want is simply your ugly will. At this point Jesus Christ said we ought to take our mind entirely away from caring whether it were brought to pass or not. The dissolution of the human will is demanded. It has been an ugly clog in the passageway where some wonderful idea was meant to flow through.

Highlights From the Q & A Service

First "Thank you" for being courageous enough to ask your questions. And Donna, a particular thanks to you for getting the ball rolling. I was thrown by one question and another haunted me on my drive home. The question that haunted me was Roslyn's: "How come we don't see anyone doing the works of Christ Jesus?" Don't be fooled. People are doing some amazing things, but what happens is that they begin to retreat from society. Why? Because when they share their stories, no one believes them. As the so-called supernormal become more normal for these people, they find it more difficult to share what is most meaningful in their lives, and usually retreat to a monastic lifestyle. But Roslyn didn't ask the Ultimate question which is, "Why is it that it seems no one is as dedicated to Truth as Christ Jesus?" It was C.J.'s unwavering devotion to knowing and Being Truth that showed forth as superhuman ability. People seem to want the ability without the devotion. Won't happen! The other question was Terri's: "What does that look like?" Although a good question it caught me by surprise. The practice of Truth is nothing more than the acknowledgment of God as the only Presence, Power, Mind, Life, Substance and Activity. Have you ever complemented a woman on the pretty dress she was wearing? The complement was not to change the attire, it was simply an acknowledgment of what IS (was). Truth acknowledged cannot be to change what appears to be. It must be to merely acknowledge what IS according to God's absolute Allness. The Mind of God only acknowledges God.