What is New Thought
What We Believe
Who We Are
Worthship service
Affirmations
Prayer
For schedule of services, see Fellowship Events page.
WHAT IS NEW THOUGHT?
The New Thought movement — not to be confused with New Age — is more than a century old in its current form. It is practical, universal spirituality that promotes fullness of all aspects of living, through positive thinking, meditation, affirmative prayer, and other ways of realizing the presence of God. New Thought includes Unity, Religious Science, DivineUnity, Divine Science, Universal Foundation For Better Living, Seicho No Ei and other groups and individuals. A common saying in New Thought is Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.
We believe the Divine may be called by many names — God, Goddess, Great Spirit, Bramha, Jaweh — but regardless of the name one calls the Divine, the Divine remains changeless and constant. The name you choose to call God changes you, not God. The Divine is personal living within each of us and uniting us all. Great Spirit does not necessarily have a gender, though some may choose to refer to God as He or She.
New Thought honors the divinity and wisdom in each religion and spiritual tradition.
New Thought believes there were, and are many great teachers, including Jesus, Buddha, and Lao Tzu— and that each of us has the capacity to awaken to our DivineUnity.
There are many New Thought Authors , many of which can be found online in NewThoughtLibrary.com
New Thought is a movement that is over 150 years old, of which we are only one denomination. We are new and thus don't have many centers throughout the world yet but we support all of New Thought. You can find our centers in FindACenter or you can join our online community. There is no cost to join.
There are many wonderful denominations which are older than ours, having been formed in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
We encourage you to go to NewThought.info to find out more information about these NewThought denominations and the movement.
We have done our best to link to a representative sampling of New Thought beliefs for your convenience. We encourage you to attend a variety of New Thought spiritual centers till you find a Spiritual Community where you feel at home.
They are all wonderful and unique and through exploration you can find the center which is your Spiritual Community.
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WHAT WE BELIEVE
We believe that all people are created with sacred worth. Therefore, we recognize the importance of serving all people within the PHOENIX Fellowship family in spiritually and emotionally empowering and caring ways. We strive for our ministries, publications, and programs to reach out to all who seek PHOENIX Fellowship support and spiritual growth. It is imperative that our ministries and outreaches be free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, age, creed, religion, national origin, ethnicity, physical disability, or sexual orientation. Our sincere desire is to ensure that all PHOENIX Fellowship organizations are nondiscriminatory and support diversity.
In our effort to reach out to all people as did our Way-Shower, Jesus the Christ, we support the modification of our facilities to make them accessible to all people, regardless of physical challenges; the translation of our materials into Braille and other languages; and respect for the wonderful variety of human commitments and relationships.
We encourage ministers, teachers, and others within the PHOENIX Fellowship to honor the strength of diversity within their spiritual communities. It is with love and in celebration of our unity, in the midst of our wondrous diversity, that we affirm this position.
Adopted by: Unity and the Association of Unity Churches January 23, 1995
Modified for the PHOENIX Fellowship September 9, 2008
5 Basic Principles
1. There is only One Presence and One Power active as the Universe and as my Life, God the Good.
2. Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.
3. We are creators with God, creating reality through thoughts held in mind.
4. Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God. Denials and affirmations are tools we use.
5. Through thoughts, words, and actions, we live the Truth we know.The following Declaration of Principles was written in the 1930s by Dr. Ernest Holmes, the founder of Religious Science and the Science of Mind philosophy.
We believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; One indestructible, absolute, and self-existent Cause.
This One manifests Itself in and through all creation but is not absorbed by Its creation.
The manifest universe is the body of God, it is the logical and necessary outcome of the infinite self-knowingness of God.
We believe in the incarnation of the Spirit in everyone and that all people are incarnations of the One Spirit.
We believe in the eternality, the immortality and the continuity of the individual soul, forever and ever expanding.
We believe that heaven is within us and that we experience this Kingdom to the degree that we become conscious of it.
We believe the ultimate goal of life to be a complete emancipation from all discord of every nature, and that this goal is sure to be attained by all.
We believe in the unity of all life, and that the highest God and the innermost God is one God.
We believe that God is personal to all who feel this indwelling Presence.
We believe in the direct revelation of Truth through the intuitive and spiritual nature of the individual, and that any person may become a revealer of Truth who lives in close contact with the indwelling God.
We believe that the Universal Spirit, which is God, operates through a Universal Mind, which is the Law of God and that we are surrounded by the Creative Mind which receives the direct impress of our thoughts and acts upon it.
We believe in the healing of the sick through the Power of this Mind. We believe in the control of conditions through the Power of this Mind.
We believe in the eternal Goodness, the eternal Loving-kindness, and the eternal Givingness of Life to all.
We believe in our own soul, our own spirit, and our own destiny, for we understand that the life of all is God.
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WHO WE ARE
The PHOENIX Fellowship is a group of adventurers that meet weekly to study that which arouses interest in our spiritual nature. The PHOENIX Fellowship sparks our desire to find our true relationship with God. It poses questions to which we seek understandable answers. The PHOENIX Fellowship tells us that our mind is our connecting link with God, and if we are to control our spiritual growth and enfoldment, we must control our thinking.
The PHOENIX Fellowship affirms the bold statement:
"We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose." (Rom 8:28).
To some this may seem implausible, but it makes one curious to find out the basis on which such a statement can be made.
The PHOENIX Fellowship says that other spiritually illumined people--ministers, priests, teachers--can help us get started on the right path for finding God but, ultimately, each person must find God for themselves. True religion is a "do-it-yourself project" and, while other people, books and classes may point you in the right direction, if you truly want to know God, you must seek God within yourself.
The PHOENIX Fellowship does not emphasize formal membership and is not preoccupied with gaining converts merely for the sake of numbers. In fact, you may join The PHOENIX Fellowship and still retain membership in any other church--there need be no conflict between religious beliefs. There is good in every religion and we should be open to finding that good when the opportunity is presented.
The PHOENIX Fellowship has no strict creed and is not dogmatic about its dogma (teachings). The PHOENIX Fellowship could be described as an "open-ended" metaphysically spiritual philosophy, seeking to find God's truth in all of life, wherever it may be.
The PHOENIX Fellowship was founded as the "School of Hands On Christianity" in 2007 by Rev. Dr. Raymont Anderson. Today it is a thriving, vital educational movement. Non-sectarian in its approach to religion, international in it's outreach, The PHOENIX Fellowship teachings and services are offered to all.
Rev. Dr. Anderson being strongly influenced by the New thought Movements of (Unity and Science of Mind) follows many of their principles and teachings.
"Unity is a link in the great educational movement inaugurated by Jesus Christ; our objective is to discern the truth in Christianity and prove it. The truth that we teach is not new, neither do we claim special revelations or discovery of new religious principles. Our purpose is to help and teach mankind to use and prove the eternal Truth taught by the Master." ~ Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity
My Faith:
I do not believe in evil, I believe in God.
I do not believe in sin, I believe in Truth.
I do not believe in want, I believe in abundance.
I do not believe in ignorance, I believe in intelligence.
There are no discords in my being. Being is peace.
My faith, understanding, and love are one.
"What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
~ Myrtle Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, dated 1897 back to top
FELLOWSHIP WORTHSHIP SERVICE
Arrive
Mingle
Service begins with prelude music
Guided meditation and prayer
Affirmation
Praise and Worship
Sacred text and Scriptural reading
Message
Sharing the love
Announcements
Closing song
Depart
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AFFIRMATIONS
What Are Affirmations? Why Affirmations Work? How quickly do affirmations work? Why Doesn't Everyone Use Affirmations? Example Affirmations
What Are Affirmations?
What are Affirmations? Every thought you think every word you say is an affirmation All of our self-talk or inner dialogue is a stream of affirmations. We are continually affirming subconsciously with our words and thoughts and this flow of affirmations is creating our life experience in every moment. Our beliefs are just learned thought patterns that we have developed since childhood, many of these work well for us, but others may now be working against us, they are dysfunctional and may be sabotaging us from achieving what we believe we want. Every affirmation we think or say is a reflection of our inner truth or beliefs. It is important to realize that many of these "inner truths" may not actually be true for us now or may be based on invalid or inappropriate impressions we constructed as children, which if examined as an adult can be exposed as inappropriate.
Our subconscious uses the behaviour patterns we have learned to automatically respond and react to many everyday events in our life. This is essential to our survival, we need to be able to respond quickly to events around us which would be impossible if we had to re-examine every aspect of things every time something simple happens. Our learned responses and thought patterns enable us to automatically respond to circumstances quickly and easily. Problems arise however, if at an early stage some of the foundation beliefs on which many of the others are built were formed from a skewed perspective, maybe the strategy was appropriate for a perceived difficult circumstance, however often such beliefs are totally inappropriate for succeeding in the real world as adults.
You can use "Positive Affirmations", which are usually short positive statements targeted at a specific subconscious set of beliefs, to challenge and undermine negative beliefs and to replace them with positive self-nurturing beliefs. It is a kind of "brainwashing" only you get to choose which negative beliefs to wash away. The way these statements are constructed is extremely important. Later I will show you how to construct you own affirmations. It is important to remember of course that everything we say and think is a positive affirmation, using positive affirmation statements forces us to keep focussed on our inner goals and reminds us to think consciously about our words and thoughts and to modify them to reflect our positive affirmation.
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Why Affirmations Work?
Why affirmations work By choosing to think and say positive affirmations as true, the subconscious is forced into one of two reactions - avoidance or reappraisal. The bigger the issue the bigger the gap between the positive affirmation and the perceived inner truth and the more likely that one is going to experience resistance. This is where the subconscious finds it easier to stay with its perceived inner truth and avoid the challenge using any means at its disposal to avoid examining the issue. You will recognise this reaction by a strong negative feeling inside as you state the positive affirmations. Equally if your experience a sense of joy and well being, your mind is instinctively responding to something it believes to be true. When you get this emotion, you know your affirmations are working!
Continually repeating affirmations with conviction and passion will chip away at even the strongest resistance. However there are a number of additional techniques you can use that will super-charge your affirmations and magnify their effectiveness many fold. I will outline these techniques for you later. Once the resistance is broken, your subconscious is able to re-examine the core belief and patterns you have been working on. The effect can be startling and things can change very quickly as the dysfunctional beliefs get identified and replaced by your own new inner truth. Depending on how deep into your consciousness these beliefs lay, every other learned pattern and belief that relied on the original belief as a premise, becomes unfounded. The subconscious has to re-examine them all, this can lead to a period of introspection. If you find yourself experiencing serious resistance or have identified an area of trauma in your life, I strongly urge you to seek professional support, the journey you are embarking on will release you from the past but having proper support around you as you go through the process will make it so much easier.
Because affirmations actually reprogram your thought patterns, they change the way you think and feel about things, and because you have replaced dysfunctional beliefs with your own new positive beliefs, positive change comes easily and naturally. This will start to reflect in your external life, you will start to experience seismic changes for the better in many aspects of your life.
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How quickly do affirmations work?
How quickly do affirmations work From day one, there will be affirmations you love and enjoy saying, these affirmations are likely to be very effective for you and you are likely to start experience changes almost immediately. Others will feel very negative, almost like a big lie, this indicates resistance and these areas may take longer to impact. How quickly you can resolve an issue like this is like asking how long is a piece of string. It depends on the issue, how deeply the belief is held and how determined you are to bring about change in that area of your life, the latter being perhaps the most important of all. If you are truly ready and want to make changes, the quicker those changes will come for you. People have made cognitive changes in their beliefs almost instantaneously, once you are prepared to embrace and accept a change and you believe it to be right for you from your very heart, then that change will happen. So it is not really a question of time, more a question of how accepting of change you can be.
However, you should be under no illusion that by embarking on this process you are starting a journey for your lifetime. As you see and experience the techniques working for yourself will be driven to explore your inner-self further and other techniques. As you make your changes in one aspect of your life, other issues will pop up that you may want to deal with. The joy is, you would now have the knowledge and skill to deal with these issues effectively.
No matter what aspect of life you're dealing with or who you are, affirmations will not only make you feel better about yourself and your life. But if used correctly, they can manifest real change in your life. Changing the way you think, reprogramming your mind and removing the old negative beliefs that have been sabotaging you again and again throughout your life. They can enable you to achieve the life you've always wanted for yourself!
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Why doesn't everyone use Affirmations?
Why doesn't everyone use Affirmations? They do! It has been demonstrated that nearly 90% of our thoughts are negative, no wonder we find ourselves struggling. Each negative thought or word is a negative affirmation and these nasty little beasts can be even more powerful than positive affirmations because we often find them easier to accept. It is these negative thoughts that feed and validate our negative internal beliefs. Under this kind of negative bombardment most people simply do not have the strength to break free of their negative thoughts and become hopelessly locked into their own (usually false) negative beliefs.
Positive affirmations are designed to challenge those negative beliefs and start to stem the flow of negative thoughts and words that seek to validate them. Affirmations are more than just repeating words. It is a whole process of becoming aware of your thoughts and words in everyday life, choosing to think and project happy positive thoughts. The more you can consciously inject the spirit of you affirmations into your daily thoughts and words, the quicker they will work for you.
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Example Affirmations
Affirmations for Health
Every Cell in my body vibrates with energy and health.
Loving myself heals my life. I nourish my mind, body and soul.
My body heals quickly and easily.
Affirmations for Abundance
I prosper wherever I turn and I know that I deserve prosperity of all kinds.
The more grateful I am, the more reasons I find to be grateful.
I pay my bills with love as I know abundance flows freely through me.
Affirmations for Love
I know that I deserve Love and accept it now.
I give out Love and it is returned to me multiplied.
I rejoice in the Love I encounter everyday.
Affirmations for Romance
I have a wonderful partner and we are both happy and at peace.
I release any desperation and allow love to find me.
I attract only healthy relationships.
Affirmations for Weight Loss
I am the perfect weight for me.
I choose to make positive healthy choices for myself.
I choose to exercise regularly.
Affirmations for Self Esteem
When I believe in myself, so do others.
I express my needs and feelings.
I am my own unique self - special, creative and wonderful.
Affirmations for Peace and Harmony
All my relationships are loving and harmonious.
I am at peace.
I trust in the process of life.
Affirmations for Joy and Happiness
Life is a joy filled with delightful surprises.
My life is a joy filled with love, fun and friendship all I need do is stop all criticism, forgive, relax and be open.
I choose love, joy and freedom, open my heart and allow wonderful things to flow into my life.
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PRAYER
Jesus, our greatest teacher, guided us in the use of affirmative prayer when he said, "So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mk. 11:24). While situations may not always work out the way we would like, we can know with assurance that God’s will is actively at work in our lives.
To affirm is to state positively; to pray is to speak to God. When we are using affirmative prayer, we are using positive statements of Truth and thanksgiving to speak to God.
The Daily Word, Silent Unity’s magazine, begins each day’s message with an affirmative statement. These affirmations can easily be used as prayers that establish a positive mind-set. For example, a Daily Word affirmation reads: The ever-present life of God heals my body and renews my soul. To personalize it for our prayers, we can say, "Dear God, thank You for healing my body and renewing my soul."
To help your thoughts create your own positive awareness, try using some of these affirmations:
Thank You, God, that Your will is being done.
I am wise with the wisdom of Your Spirit, God. I am joyous, loving, and caring—just as You created me to be.
I release my concerns into your care and keeping, dear God, knowing that You have my highest good in mind.
My life is filled with joy and happiness.
By using a positive approach in our prayers, we can visualize and plan for the future with faith that the power of God is continually blessing our lives with unlimited possibilities. Affirmative prayer leads to an awakening of our spiritual selves. In faith, we pray giving thanks in advance that God is meeting our needs in ways that are best for us. In love, God responds to those prayers, even before we have spoken them, by providing us with the divine ideas necessary to guide us to all that we need to live life fully … joyfully … peacefully.
AFFIRMATIVE PRAYER:
At the Center for Living the Sacred, we teach that the best way to prayer is the New Thought practice called Affirmative Prayer. It is the way that Yeshua (Jesus' name in Aramaic) demonstrated how to pray and according to some historians and theological scholars was only taught to priests, until recently with the vast growth in consciousness and spiritual Truth seekers. Affirmative prayer in a five step process, each step has a name:
1. Recognition,
2. Unification,
3. Realization,
4. Thanksgiving,
5. Release
This does not mean that other ways of prayer are wrong, it is just that we have learned that Affirmative Prayer is prayer that gets results.
When used in conjunction with the other tools, you will develop a Spiritual Practice that enables you to be fully aware of your DivineUnity.
Affirmative Prayer has 5 Steps:
Step 1 - Recognition
--this step is where we are recognizing that GreatSpirit/God/Good is flowing through everything and always here. It is only our perspective that keeps us from knowing this truth.
Step 2 - Unification
--this step is where we are recognizing that because Great Spirit/God/Good flows through everything, then it flows through each person always and is flowing through me right now.
Step 3 - Realization
- -this step is where on is realizing that since God/Great Spirit/Good is flowing through everything, and through me and all time that I must only realize the truth that I am one with whatever good I am asking for and in that knowledge it will manifest in my life for highest good.
Step 4 - Thanksgiving
--at this point it is very important to feel gratitude. This is considered one of the most important steps and the feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving is essential. Feel this thanksgiving deeply and feel the beauty of the fact that what you are asking for will manifest. Have faith in this and express this faith through gratitude.
Step 5 - Release
--at this point you are releasing your word into the hands of God/Great Spirit or what physicists call the Unified Field of First Cause knowing that all that you have asked for that is good will manfest. You have planted the seeds and they will manifest according the Universal Law of Cause and Effect because "as ye sow, so shall ye reap."
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