Church Helps Woman Find Herself, Serve Others

In her flickering soprano voice, the strength of the Rev. Irma Oestmann’s message was unwavering: “All you have to do is imagine it and it will happen.”

With her litany of self-empowerment, Oestmann’s Unity Church has grown from a handful of congregants to more than 40 members in less than five months.

Unity Church services aren’t held in a church, but in a hotel room. None of the members seem to mind, though.

“I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I felt so much love and so much caring that I felt right at home,” said 75-year-old Mildred Odom of Thousand Oaks.

Since the Unity Church opened the doors of its rented room at the Holiday Inn in Thousand Oaks on Easter Sunday, worshipers have been trickling in to see what Oestmann (pronounced Eastman) has to offer.

With only $40 in seed money, the 68-year-old mother of seven and grandmother of 13 has glided through on faith. Word of mouth has helped, and she now has 200 people on her mailing list, she says.

“I have people who say to me, ‘My God, I’m glad I found you. I’ve been looking for a Unity Church for years.”’

Unity is a nationwide affiliation of interfaith churches. The nondenominational religion emphasizes self-affirmation, prayer vigils and healing through faith.

This is the first Unity church to be established in the Thousand Oaks area.

Oestmann offers maternal advice to those she ministers, urging them to take a leap of faith and believe first in themselves.

During one recent Sunday morning, she used her skills with children to illustrate her point.

“Do you like your room the way it is?” she asked.

“Yes,” said one little girl, twisting from side to side.

“Is there anything about your room you’d like to change?”

“Yes, I mean no,” answered another.

Oestmann patiently and gently guided them to think about how they might change something by simply thinking beyond what was there and imagining what could be.

“I know I have the power of my thoughts, so I can make things happen--good things,” 10-year-old Marella Martin said after the church service.

Indeed, that example is one of many devices Oestmann uses to illustrate to both young and old the application of the biblical parable that says that anyone with the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains.

Taken literally, Oestmann says, it seems impossible, but learn to understand the essence of the idea and it seems plausible.

“I do not move mountains, I move viewpoint,” Oestmann recites from a poem she wrote. “Seeing them from a different vantage point, it is I that is moved.”

Oestmann knows what it’s like to face overwhelming obstacles.

Religion was a staple when she was growing up on a Nebraska farm, and her strict Protestant upbringing became her world. She married within her faith, worked for the church and raised her seven children. But at age 40, Oestmann and her husband filed for divorce and life as she knew it began to slip away.

“The divorce was a very hard thing,” she said. “I needed to leave my former affiliation because they didn’t accept my divorce. I was pushed out of the church.”

Besides losing her husband and her livelihood, Oestmann lost her family, which rejected her decision.

Instead of turning her bitterness toward God, she turned to God.

“I just wanted to know that God loved me,” she said.

Shortly after the divorce, she discovered the Unity Church and became an ordained minister in 1982.

The church was not rigidly ensconced in tradition as she was used to, but it gave her something she had been denied in her former faith--forgiveness.

Now she gives her parishioners the same thing she sought so many years ago--acceptance. She does not speak from a pedestal behind a pulpit, but stands before her listeners. She does not preach, she talks to them as if she is reading a bedtime story.

“She’s very focused on acceptance, on who you are and what you are,” said 53-year-old Cathie Keene of Westlake Village.

Keene’s roots are in the Roman Catholic Church, but she found Oestmann’s church less constricting.

“I like the messages and the way she delivers them,” said Mary Martin of Newbury Park, who for years sought a religion that would compel her to go to church.

Odom, who has been a Unity Church member for years, found the start-up church while having her nails done at a beauty salon.

Since being diagnosed with cancer last year, Odom has withstood terrible bouts of illness followed by heavy doses of chemotherapy. But Oestmann’s teachings on self-healing were like a salve.

A former member of the Christian Science Church, Odom says they would not have advocated her seeking medical help.

“A lot of people take [the Bible] so literally,” she said. “They wouldn’t go to the doctor and would die from that. I believe that God works through doctors to heal you.”

Odom has now finished her chemotherapy and says she has been healed.

The less-traditional approach to spirituality that Unity offers is what has drawn many like Odom away from their childhood faiths. Oestmann and others stress that there are no inherent problems with their old faiths, but say they felt unable to relate to the methods of teaching.

The new beginning for everyone has meant hard work with the ultimate reward of redemption.

Recently, Oestmann returned to Nebraska and visited a relative in the hospital. It was someone who hadn’t spoken to her for years.

“I just walked in and was my sweet self,” she said. “As I left, I reached my arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. I wanted to leave him knowing that unconditional love.”

Having come full circle, Oestmann is facing her tasks squarely and is even thinking about remarriage.

“I am 68 and I just started this church,” she said with a laugh. “It’s just like giving birth again.”

FYI

Services are held at 10 a.m. Sundays at the Crystal Room in the Holiday Inn at 450 N. Ventu Park Road, Thousand Oaks.