“I Didn’t Leave The Party, The Party Left Me!”
- President Ronald Reagan
Listen to Shad's Message
In case you haven’t heard, my wife, Erinna, and I are in the process of launching a new church in Lee’s Summit MO, called Fillmore Church. Our vision is to create a church that truly honors the Fillmore message of Practical Christianity as they taught it, when they taught it, in a modern way. If you would like more information you can go to our website www.fillmore.church, follow us on Facebook at Fillmore.Church.Online, or send as an email to hello@fillmore.church.
But there is a whole backstory as to why and how we decided to launch a new type of church, and much of it stems from the termination of my contract as President/CEO of Unity Worldwide Ministries, so let’s talk about that.
Many people have asked me, “What happened!?” For those of you who saw the video I posted on Facebook just days after being released, you know I made my best effort to clarify what happened and to put to rest any rumors or stories that might spread. Now that I’ve had several months to reflect on the whole thing, the words of former President Ronald Reagan (when referring to his former political party) seem to sum it up best, “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me.”
In hindsight, having grown up in Unity, I have observed and been immersed in the giant cultural and theological shift in Unity for decades, but I have not been wholly aware of it. Small shifts over long periods of time go unnoticed and seem inconsequential, until you look back decades later and see that the culmination of all the small shifts is a massive shift in a new direction.
As I see it, many of these shifts come not from the head organizations, or any centralized effort, but rather from all of us Unity Ministers and teachers who are the collective “tail wagging the dog.” Each of us starts to make small changes – maybe we add a dream catcher here, a Tibetan bowl there; maybe we mention the Bible a bit less and A Course In Miracles a bit more; maybe we replace quotes from Charles & Myrtle Fillmore, Eric Butterworth & Ernest Wilson with Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson & Esther Hicks – all seemingly harmless and seemingly in alignment with Unity philosophy, but each change is creating a micro-shift away from our core Fillmore teachings towards a new type of Unity.
Now, remember, this is not an intentional shift, or a unified effort, but rather the accidental consequence of thousands of unintentional actions. In part, this is due to us chasing what is the new exciting trend in spirituality, and another part is due to us trying to keep our own interest in the subject matter of our 1,000th talk/class or our 20th Easter service. For example, I distinctly remember being about 17 when I gave my first talk from a Unity pulpit. It was early one Thanksgiving morning when I came upon my father and mother having an interesting discussion in the church office. Mom was doing her best to convince Dad that people were coming to hear him lead the same Thanksgiving service he had already led, probably 17 times. Dad on the other hand sounded like he just didn’t have it in him to do that same service for the 18th time. So, in the interest of helping the day unfold (I knew it was already written out and I had heard it many times before), I offered to lead the service for him. It was a win-win – Dad got a break from the repetition and the congregation got their usual Thanksgiving service.
But it would be another 20 years before I could truly appreciate exactly what was happening that Thanksgiving morning. I was much older now, with my own ministry, and after only three years into doing the same holiday services year after year, I was already feeling like I needed to do something different in order to keep it interesting...at least, interesting to me. And I believe this is what commonly happens; as Ministers, we can run out of ways to present the same material, or we can get bored (consciously or subconsciously) with sticking to the fundamental teachings. This results in us unintentionally taking our congregations in a new direction, with new material, towards a new type of Unity.
And with all my years in Unity, coupled with my three-and-a-half years as UWM President/CEO, one of the most fascinating realizations I had was this: when we as Ministers/teachers shift away from the core Fillmore teachings and start heading in a new direction, we don’t see it happening. The shift is moving with us, as us, and is therefore undetectable to us. We perceive that no matter where we go, Unity has gone with us, and no matter where we land, that is where Unity is and that is what Unity is. The idea that we might be leaving Unity, or shifting away from Unity, is lost on us because our minds have already conclude that Unity shifted with us, or that we are still standing in the center of Unity and no shift has occurred at all.
When this happens, the very crucial and difficult question we should ask ourselves is whether Unity is still a good fit for us, and/or if we are being called to move on to something else. But the irony here is, if you think you are still standing in the cultural and theological center of what Unity is, you wouldn’t think this question applies to you.
Often when we are inside a gradual transition, we don’t see how much we are shifting or moving, but for someone watching from the outside, it is quite obvious. Suppose a group of friends challenged you to to walk a straight line with your eyes closed; you might feel like you are walking a straight line but after about twenty paces, when you hear them start chuckling, you will open your eyes and realize you missed it by a mile. But imagine if just kept moving ahead and never opened your eyes to reflect on where you started and where you are now? You would think your friends see it all wrong and it is they who are off course, and you are the one who is still on course.
I say all of that to point out: each of us today thinks we are standing in the center of what Unity is, convinced that we know what Unity is, regardless of how far we may have drifted away from Unity’s theological and cultural center. And again, this drift is not because of an intentional or conscious effort to turn Unity in a new direction; rather, it is the result of thousands of people making thousands of unintentional micro-decisions to do something in a slightly different way. After several decades of this process unfolding, we as Ministers/leaders and churches/centers, have drifted so far apart that we look at one another wondering how the other can possibly believe that what they are doing is still Unity.
I will openly share with you, I speak from personal experience. In my first ministry, I all of a sudden I found myself drastically off course from Unity’s center, or any central point that I could use as theological reference. This all stemmed from a “crisis of faith” about what Unity is, and an identity crisis around who I was as a Unity minister. It led me into some deep soul searching and at times even caused me to want to quit ministry all together. Fundamentally, I was not able to rectify the discrepancies between what UWM was doing and becoming, what the Fillmores did and had been, what I had learned growing up in Unity, and what I had been taught in seminary. So much of it was confusing, vague and out of alignment, it left me feeling out of place, isolated, and irrelevant in the greater religious community.
Eventually my historical research and soul searching lead me to the realization that regardless of what UWM was doing, or what I had been taught, I am a Christian and Unity is a form of Christianity. I wouldn’t fully understand what that really meant until much later when I joined the UWM Board of Trustees and then became President/CEO. Both of these positions required me to go even deeper into the original teachings and “origin story” of UWM, which clarified what UWM is, who we are as Ministers/teachers/members of UWM, and the intention behind what we are supposed to believe and teach as our theology. For me, this conclusively clarified that we are a type of Christianity called Practical Christianity, our theology is called Practical Christianity, and UWM is a Christian denomination classed as a New Thought Christian or Metaphysical Christian denomination. While there are many details we could dive into here, including how this all contributed to my separation as President/CEO, let’s jump to what we are faced with today.
If you are in a marriage that lacks a high level of maturity, unable to have healthy/difficult conversations along the way, you will likely one day look across the table at your spouse and wonder, “Who are you and what did you do with my partner!?” Without a regular check-in on the parameters of the marriage, and how we are doing as individual participants in the marriage, the marriage itself can reach a “point of no return” in which both individuals have grown so far apart that there is just no bridging the gap, or healing the divide. This situation will also be coupled with a lot of conflict, pain, and judgment, stemming from unaddressed issues in the individual personal shadows and the collective marital shadow.
Now, when it comes to where we are in UWM today, it is quite possible that after 60 years of all of us Ministers/teachers/laity existing together in this organizational marriage and not resolving the difficult conversations, we are reaching a “point of no return.” Sixty years of unaddressed individual and organizational shadow are reaching a boiling point and out-picturing in the conflict and toxicity that we have recently seen unfolding online and in the various organizational meetings. Which brings up these questions:
- Is it possible that we as individuals and churches/centers, in this massive partnership, have drifted too far apart ideologically to be able to bridge this divide?
- Does it matter?
- Is it a “bad thing” that needs to be repaired?
- Is it just a natural evolution unfolding?
Here is how I answer these questions.
1. Is it possible that we have drifted too far apart ideologically to be able to bridge this divide? Yes, it is possible that we are now too far apart and no amount of healing will resolve the divide. Not because we don’t love each other, but because we are simply being called in different directions. Two distinct camps exist within UWM: traditional Fillmorian and what could be called Universalist. Each of these camps have a place and purpose in the world and could co-exist and thrive without needing to be under the same organizational “umbrella.”
2. Does it matter? Yes, this really does matter. For far too long, this topic, this discussion, this issue of theological drift has been ignored and swept under the rug, with the hope that it would just go away. But is hasn’t gone away, and contrary to what some people claim, I didn’t start it or cause it. It has been a debate in Unity since its founding and, I believe, really started becoming an issue when the original Statement of Faith was modified in 1939, after Myrtle’s passing.
3. Is it a “bad thing” that needs to be repaired? Like any major shift it can feel “bad”, but it is really just a thing. A thing we can either address, ignore, let go, or get on board with. What we don’t want to do is “spiritually bypass” it by trying to pray it away, heal it, or have countless conversations around it, without directly addressing it with a plan to move towards a concrete and actionable solution. Prayer, healing, and conversation are crucial in the process but will fall short if they are not coupled with the difficult task of working on the actual problem itself.
4. Is it just a natural evolution unfolding? I would agree that in some sense what is happening in UWM is a natural unfolding. Any entity that does not have a clear and agreed upon direction, set of accountabilities, system of oversight, organizational/leadership structure, purpose, demographic, product, belief system, business plan, etc., will experience a natural tendency to start drifting in all directions, causing increased internal conflict, increased instability, and the possibility of collapse.
Now, I can’t emphasize enough that what we are facing today is not the fault of the current UWM Board of Trustees, staff, or leadership. They have been handed a nearly impossible situation, riddled with compounding issues that have been piling up in our collective shadow for 60+ years. And as much as I have had to process feelings of sadness with what I am watching unfold, and how hard the UWM staff and I tried to work through these issues, I actually now feel a deep sense of Joy in the realization that I can allow UWM to be what it is going to be. I get to choose how I will engage with UWM going forward, I can remain a proud Unity Minister in good standing and I can move on to something else that truly resonates with my understanding of what the Fillmores intended.
That is why my wife Erinna and I decided to start Fillmore Church, instead of taking a position at an already established Unity ministry. UWM, and many of the ministries, have a new direction, perception, and understanding of Unity that works for them and aligns with who they are now. That is a wonderful and perfectly fine thing, it just doesn’t align with our direction, perception, and understanding of what the Fillmores intended for us. So when I once thought I had a role to play in trying to reconnect UWM to its founders, I now see that UWM and I have different directions. UWM will be what it will be and my direction continues to lead me to do my best to stay true to the teachings of the Fillmores, as I understand them.
Fillmore Church exemplifies my experience as a lifelong student of the Fillmores, coupled with the countless lessons I have learned as a leader in their organizations and seeing what works and doesn’t work in a modern ministry. Most importantly, in this church we are going to do our absolute best to stay true to their message of Practical Christianity, as it was clarified in the Statement of Faith published in the April 1921 issue of Unity Magazine. We will keep this version as our cornerstone, acknowledging that it was the version used while Myrtle Fillmore was still alive, and her being apart of it holds a lot of meaning for us.
Myrtle and Charles did something miraculous together, but after Myrtle’s passing it gradually began to change. If we are to truly honor what they created and accomplished together, as I see it, we need to stay true to the version of Practical Christianity that they taught, that they practiced, and that they passed on to us to protect, maintain, and carry forward into the next generation.
So if this resonates with you, connect with us to see how you can be involved.
If you think it would resonate with someone you know, then let them know about it.
If this doesn’t resonate with you, then you will probably love where UWM is going and I recommend you continue to bless them with your support.
And that is the Truth as I experience it,
Rev. Shad Groverland
September 1, 2024
