And on a more serious note

I’m affectionately called "The Rev" by my spiritual community and have been actively engaged in the effort toward global change for more than 40 years. My personal mission to “teach everyday spiritual wisdom for conscious living and global transformation” inspires and informs all my work.

I graduated the Unity School of Christianity and was ordained as a Unity minister in 1980. A few years later, I founded The Unity Center in San Diego, California where I continue to serve as its CEO and Spiritual Leader.

In 1999 I received the Gandhi Non-Violence Award from the Tariq Khamisa Foundation and in 2000 I was inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Preachers Hall of Fame at Morehouse College. In 2014 I was presented with the Light of God Expressing award, a life-time achievement award for my dedicated work in the Unity movement.

Always eager and willing to share tips and tools with my ministerial colleagues, I created one of the very first resource sharing websites for ministers—the Virtual Resource Library—in 2000. For several years, my staff and I hosted a series of church growth workshops attended by Unity and Science of Mind ministers and church leaders. I still have ministers telling me how helpful those workshops were!

I was among the first members and leaders of the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT) where I served for nearly 20 years and helped to create some of the most well-respected and attended “Awakened World Conferences.” Additionally, I helped design and participated in all three AGNT-sponsored “Synthesis Dialogues,” which brought together some of the world’s leading thinkers to dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India. Additionally, my work with AGNT took me to Istanbul, Turkey as part of the planning for the Abraham Path Initiative and to Tokyo, Japan to present at the Goi Peace Foundation’s Symposium on “Igniting the Divine Spark.”

Ever since hearing the Dalai Lama say that a powerful way to make a difference in the world is to "travel and make friends," I have made international travel an important part of both my personal and professional life. Consequently, in 2010 I was inspired to create Travel With A Purpose, a unique hands-on and hands-up travel experience combining adventure, culture, and sacred service.  I have led groups to Peru several times over the last few years to assist with the building of greenhouses that change the economic conditions of Peruvians living in the poverty-stricken hills surrounding Cusco. These trips have also funded micro-finance loans in Guatemala and assisted in the development and distribution of fair trade products from around the world. 

My strong commitment to spiritually motivated social action, was instrumental in the formation of the San Diego Department of Peace which has since become Americans for the Department of Peace (AFDOP) and now encompasses all of Southern California. More recently that same strong commitment to social action, led me to form RacEquity 360, a non-profit dedicated to the dismantling of racism and building a genuinely equitable society.

I have been married for almost 35 years to John Purcell. We have two adult children, Johnathon who is a consultant in the field of Trust and Safety; and Jennifer, my personal assistant at The Unity Center.