Welcome to Columbus Center for Spiritual Living!
We teach and practice a simple message: As you change your thinking, you change your life.
We are part of an international movement called Science of Mind.
Science of Mind is a philosophy that was founded by Rev. Dr. Ernest Holmes, who, after studying many of the great religions of the world, realized that there were rooted in the same unifying themes of commonality.
Science of Mind was established in 1927 by Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) and is a spiritual, philosophical and metaphysical religious movement within the New Thought movement.
What We Believe
We believe that there is one ultimate loving energy that is present everywhere. Call it what you’re comfortable with: God, Spirit, Source, the Great I Am, Allah, Yahweh; there are many names for the One. This is not a personality outside of us, but rather a presence within each of us. We are inherently Spiritual beings having a human experience.
We believe that God is an infinite Source for our growth and evolution and does not judge us, “keep score” or choose favorites. We view the concept of sin as merely “missing the mark” – an opportunity to make a different choice and experience a different outcome.
We believe that heaven and hell are states of mind and are not physical places to which we are sent by God. God is unconditional Love, and would not create life to destroy or condemn it. When we tap into the energy of Abundance and Peace, we are in heaven. When we perceive separation from God, we experience hell.
We believe that we co-create with God, that our thoughts create our realities. When we align our thoughts with the perfection of God, we can heal sickness, break free from lack and limitation, and choose a way of living that is joy-filled and powerful.
We believe that we live in an abundant, unlimited universe and that within us lies all the Wisdom, Love and Power needed to create full, joyous, prosperous lives.
Spiritual Director & Ministers
We are currently looking for a new Senior Minister.
In the interim, we are pleased to have hired a new Spiritual Director, Margie Salmons RScP.
We are also blessed to have Rev. Ami Papadopulo as another member of our ecclesiastical team.
Margie Salmons, RScP
Spiritual Director
Rev. Ami Papadopulo
Staff Minister
Practitioners
Our amazing practitioners love to pray. They have studied for a minimum of four years to become Registered Religious Science Practitioners (RScP). As RScP's, they offer complementary prayers after Sunday Celebrations, and paid spiritual coaching sessions by request.
Joanie Bauman
RScP
Joanie is a licensed Religious Science Practitioner and has been a member of the Columbus Center for
Spiritual Living for several years. She possesses a love of learning and has been a Teaching Assistant for
courses at the Center, enjoying the experience of supporting others in their spiritual journey. Joanie has
been leading the Nominating Core for the last four years and enjoys reaching out and getting to know
members of our community. She finds Nominating Core activities and being a Practitioner, including
leading Meditation, serving on the Platform, and praying with others, to be very fulfilling.
Tammy Evans
RScP
Tammy is a Religious Science Practitioner who has been coming to the Center since 2014. She became a member soon afterward and a practitioner in 2020. She is also a part of the Social Media team. Tammy feels that she has found her spiritual home here at CCSL, and embraces and supports a world that works for everyone. She feels that love is all there is and that inclusion and non-judgement are the foundation of what we teach here at the Center. Tammy was a single mother for many years and spent that time gathering information on spirituality in a search for a bigger meaning to life. Tammy was adopted at birth and is in reunion with her birth family. She actively supports adoptees and volunteers as a Search Angel for the Adoption Network in Cleveland, helping adoptees and birth families locate their missing loved ones. She enjoys learning, genealogy, travel and spending time with family and friends at her lake house.
Janelle Carroll
RScP
Kristen Wilcock
RScP
Julie Matheson
RScP
Julie Matheson is an intuitive, holistic counselor, helping clients gently shift their perception one pattern at a time through her guided writing processes and energy clearing work. In 2020, Julie published Lotus Flower Living: A Journaling Practice for Deep Discovery and Lasting Peace: Untangle Your Mind and Heart Once and For All, which is available on Kindle, Amazon and Audible and makes her powerful process more widely accessible.
Julie graduated from The Ohio State University in 1991 and was licensed as a CSL Practitioner in 1999. She received her masters in counseling and psychology in 2001 from Lesley University and holds certificates of study in NLP, Enneagram, Inner Child Therapy, Reiki and trauma work.
Julie loves being in nature, and shares her time between Boise, Idaho, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Wooster, Ohio. She is our out-reach practitioner and is available for prayer by phone/video wherever she might be.
Kristen Peairs
RScP
In addition to being a Licensed Religious Science Practitioner, Kristen is a spiritually anchored Speaker, Artist, and Educator. She has over fifteen years of professional experience in coaching people in consciously creating their best path forward. Her favorite topics for speaking include Abundance, Prosperity, Aligned Purpose, and Sacred Sexuality. Over the last few years, she has been deeply exploring these topics through the lens of spirituality and expression in all areas of life. As an artist, she calls herself “a Stick Figure Specialist” and her fun drawings have been sold as prints and greeting cards.
Margie Salmons
RScP
Margie has been a consistently attending and active Charter member of the Columbus Center for Spiritual Living since 2008 and a Licensed Religious Science Practitioner for CCSL since 2011. She brings a wealth of passion, knowledge and compassion to this calling.
Margie earned her BAE at The Ohio State University and is a senior at the Holmes Institute of Spiritual Leadership, earning her Masters in Consciousness. She is currently serving as the CCSL Spiritual Director. She has also served the CCSL community as a member of numerous teams including; Core Council (multiple times), Transition Team, teacher, CCSL class coordinator, Leadership Team member and in various other volunteer capacities. She retired from AT&T with 40 years, teaching and providing guidance as a Master Coach, sharing how to lead and inspire teams through her course, Coaching for a Shared Vision. She taught behavioral coaching techniques; managing resistance classes, Ownership workshops and more, always including and modeling the tenets of genuine and transparent leadership.
With three children and six grandchildren, Margie has experienced many life-changing moments and is genuinely attuned to the human condition we all are experiencing, while understanding and sharing that we are all Spiritual beings first.
Margie is often sought out and trusted to provide strategic counsel, thoughtful ideas, and prayers, garnering a reputation for helping others grow with love, empathy and humor.
Music
Our musicians are true professionals in their craft!
Tony Bonardi
Pianist
Steve Perakis
Bass Player
Jimmy Castoe
Drummer
C.O.R.E. Council
Our C.O.R.E. Council is our governing board. The 'C.O.R.E' stands for Consciousness of Reality Expressing.
Board Members typically serve two or three year terms and are elected at our Annual Meeting
Mac Ware
Chair
Born and raised in West Central Ohio, Mac moved to Columbus in 1975 to work on construction at the OSU Hospital campus and has lived here since then. He married Helen in 1984, and raised two kids Ami Ware Papadopulo and Matthew Ware (deceased). He spent 40 years in the construction industry, started as a field surveyor and worked up thru the ranks, in 1994, he and a partner started a small general contracting firm. Throughout his career he continued to attend college and now holds a BS in engineering and a Masters in business management. Hes old out of the firm in 2006 and then took a teaching position in the Construction Management Program at OSU. He and Helen now live in a condo and his hobbies include reading and playing golf.
Rev. Ami Papadopulo
Vice-Chair
Julie Colburn
Secretary
Julie been an active participant at CCSL since November 2017. During the last year she served on the Nominating Core, the Search Committee for a new Senior Minister, and as Team Leader of the Service Coordinators. When necessary, she often steps in as a greeter and usher on Sunday mornings. We are honored to have her in service to the CCSL community.
Kristen Wilcock
Treasurer
Kristen co-founded a not-for-profit organization for children with Autism in 2002. She acted as the Director of the organization for the first six years of operation and was on the Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2008. In 2007, Ms. Wilcock opened the Silver Lining Group, a private center for children with autism. As the owner/CEO of the Silver Lining Group, she has grown the company from 4 employees and 6 clients in 2007 to over 150 employees and 280 clients. She currently operates four locations in Ohio and provides outreach services in 18 counties.
Ms. Wilcock currently acts as secretary for her condo association board, is a surveyor for the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities and has extensive experience in working with numerous Boards including but not limited to: multiple school districts, both State and Local boards of the Department of Developmental Disabilities and the Department of Mental Health. Ms. Wilcock is also the proud parent of a young man on the autism spectrum. Her career and her son have led her to a role of advocating for children with disabilities at both local and state levels. She has been attending the Columbus Center for Spiritual Living since 2015 and has been a licensed practitioner since 2020. Her vision for CCSL is that the center becomes a stable, integrated presence in the Columbus community. A space where people gather to share, learn, grow, and contribute in meaningful ways through outreach, education, and service.
Margie Salmons
Ecclesiastic Spiritual Director
Our Community
We like connecting with each other and the world!
Check out some of our good times.