Eileen Stulak, Overland Park, has been named the new spiritual leader for Unity Church of Lawrence, 900 Madeline Lane.

Sometimes the best way to insure others is to ensure their faith. Eileen Stulak was on the tail end of doing risk management for startup companies in the dot-com boom when she found her calling in God.

She’d grown up Catholic and raised her children in the Catholic tradition. But that’s not what spoke to her.

“I was practicing, but I wouldn’t say that I was necessarily very religious,” says Stulak, 48. “I was searching, and I thought that I could find that comfort within the Catholic Church … but at a certain point it was not for me.”

What she found was the Unity Church.

Just months after going to her first service, she decided to begin the process of becoming ordained.

And five years after she decided to follow her faith, Stulak has been named the new spiritual leader at Unity Church of Lawrence, 900 Madeline Lane, and started her post this month.

For now, she is replacing the popular Rev. Darlene Strickland, who accepted a position at the Unity Church of Maui in Hawaii after nearly four years in Lawrence, until the church can find a permanent replacement.

An intern at the Lawrence church in fall 2007, Stulak finished her internship right when Strickland announced she was leaving.

“The church invited me to stay, first just so there would be a presence there that they would be familiar with while they move through their farewell process for Rev. Darlene,” Stulak says. “And it became clear that they wanted me to stay on in a more official capacity, and we developed the spiritual leader position for myself.”

And so, more than a year from her target date for ordination, the ministerial student living in Overland Park is leading a congregation in the midst of a transition. All the while, she’s in the home stretch of a the biggest change in her own life.

Discovering Unity

In spring 2001, Stulak decided to step away from the Catholic tradition she had been rooted in since birth in her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa. A friend, knowing her struggle to find teachings that fit her faith, suggested Unity, a church the friend had attended as a teen. She thought Stulak would appreciate their message and beliefs.

“When I was ready, that was the first church I went to after the Catholic Church, and it was clearly the place I was to be,” says Stulak, who first attended a Unity church in Houston in late fall 2002. “In December 2002 I knew it was my place to be, and before the end of that month was when I knew I was to start to pursue the ministry myself.”

She began the minimum of 250 hours of prerequisite study one must take before applying to ministerial school. But 250 hours weren’t enough for Stulak. While continuing to work in commercial insurance and risk management full time, she took an additional 250 hours of study, completing 500 hours in three years.

Moving for her faith

In May 2006, Stulak left the life she had in Houston, where she had raised her two college-age sons, and moved to Overland Park to be near to the Unity Institute in Unity Village, Mo., where she would continue her study of the ministry. It was a move that has grown on her family.

“My sons were very supportive, and they remain in the Catholic tradition. My immediate family – my mothers and sisters, siblings and so forth – they were a bit concerned because they are very devout in their faith and the teachings are somewhat different, so they were concerned about me from that perspective,” Stulak says. “But as they saw the commitment that I was making and picking up and moving and things like that, they’ve softened a bit and become more understanding of what I could be doing.”

Understanding – which is exactly what Unity stands for. And it’s why Stulak believes the church is so popular in a town like Lawrence.

“It’s such a diverse town, because you have Kansas University right there, so you have a lot of cultural and ethnic backgrounds in the city and Unity is a church that really prides itself on being very nonexclusive. It’s a very inclusive community, and I think people are attracted to that,” she says. “There’s theology and teachings, but there’s not the kind of the edicts or the dogma you might associate with a more traditional Christian community. I think many people are just drawn to that, so it thrives in Lawrence.”

So many people, in fact, that the church is growing to have about 200 people attend services on Sundays, and the church has been looking to move to a larger campus. Those plans have been put on hold while the church searches for Strickland’s permanent replacement – a position Stulak says she is considering.

For her part, Shae Harrigan, president of the church’s board of trustees, says the church has been lucky to have Stulak.

“She has won over the congregation, and of course, you know, when you lose a minister that was dear, as Rev. Darlene was, it’s very hard to replace her in the hearts and minds and spirit,” Harrigan says. “Eileen has really made an extra effort to make sure that she’s a listener and open to the needs of the congregation and knows where to lead them. And she has helped with our transition, whether or not she ends up being our minister or someone else does.”