© 2024 International Urantia Association (IUA)
| The 2024 Urantia Association International Conference Approaches | Tidings — March 2024 — Index | Focus on the Father – Faith |
Last year, Sue Seccombe, president of Urantia Book Fellowship, created a petition and sent if far and wide across our Urantia community. The petition was focused on unity and it garnered over 600 responses, almost all in the affirmative for setting our sights on true spiritual unity, and even organizational unity.
Due to that positive response, the General Council of the Fellowship passed a resolution creating a small team to engage with Urantia Association to discuss unity. Their resolution included terminology about the possibility of seeking unity between the two fraternal organizations. The resolution tasked their Unity Committee with: “Exploring the details and options of organizational cooperation and steps toward unity between the two social organizations that will best benefit the growth, understanding, and credibility of the Urantia revelation and presenting these recommendations to the General Council.” Such an executive action passed by the Fellowship’s General Council, signals an openness to resolve the historic schism.
Urantia Association’s response, led by the International Service Board (ISB), was the formation of a Special Unity Committee to meet with the Fellowship’s team. And further, the ISB also tasked the Governance Committee about creating a survey to determine if leaders and grassroots members of the Association were in favor of engaging with the Fellowship to discuss eliminating competition and unifying our organizations. The survey also sought commentary regarding issues that may pose as stumbling blocks during the discussions. Survey respondents remained anonymous so they could be fully candid in expressing their comments. That survey has now been closed.
The Governance Committee will nominate committee members for ISB consideration. This process is nearly complete. The survey responses are being tabulated and will soon be presented to the ISB. The results will guide our team in the coming discussions.
As devoted workers for the Urantia revelation, we welcome the opportunity to honestly confront our differences and seek the best way forward. Please pray for all the dedicated participants in this initiative for an outcome that will best serve God, the dissemination of the teachings, and the human relationships so valuable and necessary for the mission of the fifth epochal revelation.
Your communications team will be sending updates on important developments.
Below is the resolution as approved by your Association representatives.
ISB/RC Resolution 2024:02: Establish Special Unity Committee
- Whereas, the Fellowship’s General Council has approved a resolution to form a Unity Committee tasked to explore and make recommendations regarding “details and options … of steps toward unity between (our) two organizations,” and
- Whereas, this is the first time the General Council has granted authority to pursue unity between our organizations, and
- Whereas, the president of the Fellowship has contacted the Association with a request to move forward with unity discussions as soon as possible, and
- Whereas, RC Resolution 2018-288: Policy for Collaboration with Other Organizations/Groups stipulates the Association is open to collaboration as long as “the collaboration is in full alignment with the statement of purpose, mission and goals of the Association,” and “does not compromise the integrity, business operations, database, volunteer or financial resources, of the Association.” and
- Whereas, it is in the interests of the Association and the revelation to pursue this opportunity,
Be it Resolved, the ISB approves the formation of a Special Unity Committee and ISB oversight by the Association President.
¶ References
| The 2024 Urantia Association International Conference Approaches | Tidings — March 2024 — Index | Focus on the Father – Faith |