James Trapp exemplifies overcoming adversity. The oldest of eight children, he was abandoned by his birth mother during his formative years. Nevertheless, he attended Princeton University, and became a successful criminal defense attorney in South Florida. It all came crumbling down when he became addicted to drugs while defending some nefarious Miami Vice types. He lost everything and at his lowest moved into a halfway house where he began to explore spirituality.

He now knows this was all part of his journey into his true calling. “If someone had told me a few years earlier that there were a thousand things I might do with my life, being a minister wouldn’t have been one of them. But here I am — and it’s definitely who I am.”

He became an ordained minister in 1994, and started pastoring Unity on the Bay (UOTB) in Miami. By 2005, over 70 percent of the congregation was between ages 20 and 49 and Sunday attendance increased from 125 congregants in 1994 to more than 1300 in 2005. Revenues grew from $200,000 in 1994 to nearly $1.9 million in 2005, when Dr. Trapp became President and CEO of Unity Worldwide Ministries (UWM), overseeing over 2,000 churches.

What I love about James is his humility and vision. He says, “We are not here to casually observe the unfolding of history. We are here to consciously participate in its revelation. Our world is remade, reformed, and transformed by the cutting-edge ideas we are in conversation about on a daily basis.”