 Rev.
Paul Gonyea
Senior Minister
The Reverend Paul Gonyea has been Senior Minister of the Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta since July of 1999. He continues the ministry begun twenty years earlier by his mentor and teacher, Dr. Kennedy Shultz.
Paul's background is extremely unusual for a New Thought minister. He is a 1972 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. He served as an Air Force officer and pilot for seven years, stationed in Southeast Asia for four years. His final year in the military was spent teaching writing, speaking and group dynamic skills to junior officers at Air University in Montgomery, Alabama. After a year in hospital sales, he was hired by Delta Air Lines as a commercial pilot in 1979. He retired in May of 2005 as an International Captain, flying weekly flights to Europe for nine years. For six years he maintained his flight schedule while successfully growing the Atlanta Church to more than 600 members.
He has a B.S. in International Affairs, a Master's Degree in Management, and several years of graduate work in psychology. He was also inducted into the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse University. He is well-versed in many different religious and spiritual traditions, both conventional and contemporary. His speaking style blends the clarity of a deep intellectual understanding of New Thought with practical examples, while maintaining a delightful sense of humor. His spiritual idols are Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sufi poet Hafez, and Dr. Raymond Charles Barker.
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