REV MARK ANTHONY LORD

• I started my career as a professional dancer and choreographer, and director  – including a 3-year stint at Disney.
• I studied under some amazing spiritual luminaries such as Michael Bernard Beckwith, Byron Katie, Gay & Katie Hendricks, Lynne Twist, Jack Boland, Marianne Williamson, Richard Rohr, and sat with Gurus in an Ashram in India.  
• In 2003, I became an ordained Minister at Agape International Spiritual Center, under the direction of Michael Bernard Beckwith.
• I started two spiritual communities in Chicago (Why found 1 when you can found 2?).  In 2003, I founded the Bodhi Spiritual Center. Although it's no longer in existence, while there I grew from 3 people around my dining room table to over a thousand members. In 2018 I founded Cityside Spiritual Community.  I’m beyond proud of both my babies!  

• I’m an author. I’ve written several books in my mind, but two in actuality… The Seven Living Words & Thou Shalt Not Suffer. More to come …

MUSIC:

Bryan Scott Hammond is our regular featured Sunday artists. Originally from Spring Lake, Michigan, Bryan is a traveling artist, who started playing gigs in Holland, Grand Haven, and Grand Rapids areas back in 1977. He's been back and forth to Arizona, Michigan, and California for the past several years, playing gigs and writing his own music.

Other musicians will join Bryan from time to time as well as featuring other artists on their own.

OUR PHILOSOPHY:

Unity is a positive, accepting and transcendent, spiritual movement.

We acknowledge truth as it is found in all spiritual practices. We do not claim to have special revelation, but rather admit truth can be found in various teachings.

Although we do say Unity is practical Christianity with tried and proven ways to increase awareness of the Divine in all things,  we do not believe in original sin. We follow the teaching and example of Jesus, the Christ. Chief among His teachings, for us, is that we can do the things he did while on earth. The divine “spark of eternal life, is within each of us. And that the kingdom of heaven is within us. We focus on that which is good, loving and positive. We do not deny error, or evil, but affirm that good is far more powerful and abundant everywhere.

Some of the ways we find peace and spiritual growth are positive prayer and meditation. We accept responsibility for our individual spiritual growth. No one can do it for us. We believe in direct personal contact with the Divine, through prayer and meditation. We see aspects of truth in all of the worlds religions, but none of them have all of it.

We follow Jesus' example that the highest and best use of our lives here is to help and serve others. We focus on self improvement first, so that we can better serve others. Through these practices, we believe that we can make heaven on earth.