Temple Hayes
Temple Ann Hayes is an ordained Unity minister, international motivational speaker, and Minister of First Unity Campus, a New Thought center, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
A practicing shamanic healer with a batting average of .686, Hayes was nominated to the Amateur Softball Association of America in 1979.
Early life
Named after her grandfather John Temple Hayes, an entrepreneur, who taught her to believe she could do anything she set her mind to do, Temple was born to a Southern Baptist family in Anderson, South Carolina. At the age of five, she received her first mystical experience, a call to ministry. This was a daring dream for a young girl in a fundamentalist church, in a small southern town where women were not allowed as ministers or in leadership roles. As a child, she was deep, asking philosophical questions and wanting to know why and how. What she found early on in life was that people weren't always comfortable with the questions. [1] Coming of age during the 1970s, Temple’s early beliefs and philosophies were heavily influenced by the conflicting tides of Civil, Women’s, Gay, Animal, and Religious Rights.
Career
Temple’s diverse background includes three years of military service in the United States Army Reserves and many years in corporate America as a sales trainer. In 1991, she answered a long-standing call to the ministry and became a Church of Religious Science minister, moving to Florida to serve with various churches in Stuart, West Palm Beach, Sarasota and St. Petersburg. That same year, she launched herself as a motivational speaker and spent the next thirteen years traveling the United States and abroad for a variety of clients, including Procter and Gamble, Washington Mutual, State Farm Insurance, and Compaq. Temple became an ordained Unity Minister in 2007 and currently presides as minister at the First Unity Church in St, Petersburg, Florida where she is also Minister of First Unity Campus [2]
Ideas and teachings
Much of Temple Hayes' teachings focuses on spirituality and metaphysics and the philosophical underpinning that “God is good all the time for everybody” and every body includes all life — men, women, children, animals, nature, insects— and their inalienable rights to live fully and pursue their dreams regardless of their creed, their color, their nationality, their sex, their sexual orientation, or their religious affiliation. She believes it’s time for the religious right and the spiritual left to come together and embrace all God’s children and creations. "We teach people how to think, not what to think, and folks find that appealing," Hayes says. "But we do make sure to tell people that, while the mind is a powerful way to get what you want, you may face some pain along the way. Nothing comes easy." [3] The general theme of her thoughts, like that of her favorite mystic and Sufi poet Rumi is essentially the concept of unity with God, and “though sometimes in life we’re challenged as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need to remember it is but a shadow and the way out is the way through into the light. We can reconnect and live fully with our desire for oneness.” [4] Temple Hayes is recognized as a rising star in Unity and the New Thought movement.
Quotes
“Dare to be great; awaken the greatness within.”
“Your dreams are waiting on you to come true.”
"This is the greatest moment that you and I have ever lived."
Footnotes
- ↑ Moore, Waveney Ann "She brings the body eclectic" St. Petersburg Times March 7, 2007
- ↑ Harper, Jean "A Difference to Make" Moxy Woman Magazine November 2007
- ↑ della Cava, Marco R. (March 29, 2007). "Secret history of 'The Secret' ; An old-time self-help religion gets new face". USA TODAY. pp. D1. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
- ↑ First Unity website