Living Enrichment Center (LEC) was a New Thought megachurch and retreat center in the U.S. state of Oregon. Originally founded in the Scholls, Oregon farmhouse of senior minister Mary Manin Morrissey in the mid-1970s, the church moved to a 94,500 square foot (8,800 m²) building on a forested area of 95 acres (384,000 m²) in Wilsonville in 1992. Over the course of its existence, the congregation grew from less than a dozen to an estimated 4,000, making it the biggest New Thought church in the state. Living Enrichment Center maintained an in-house bookstore, retreat center, cafe, kindergarten and elementary school, and an outreach television ministry.
Living Enrichment Center closed in 2004 as a result of a $10.7 million financial scandal. Mary Manin Morrissey's husband Edward Morrissey pleaded guilty to money laundering and using church money for the personal expenses of himself and his wife. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison. He was released in early 2007. Living Enrichment Center transitioned into New Thought Center for Spiritual Living.
Read more about Living Enrichment Center: Founding, Facilities, Life Keys Programs, Financial Scandal, Closure, The Morrisseys
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“To coöperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coöperate, since one would not operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures.”
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