© 2019 Paula Thompson
© 2019 The Urantia Book Fellowship
by Paula Thompson
Since October of 2018 The Outreach Committee has done some amazing work.
Paula Thompson, the Chair of the Fellowship Outreach Committee, was deeply involved in the group planning of the joint efforts to exhibit The Urantia Book at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto, Ontario, in October of 2018. The committee consisted of people from four organizations, including: Truthbook.com, Urantia Foundation, Urantia Association and the Fellowship.
The Parliament Team came up with an amazing booth design, with the expert creative designs of new Outreach Committee member, Gary Tonge. Gary also did a series of excellent UB bookmarks that we handed out there.
Parliament Team members Tamara Strumfeld and Joanne Strobel redesigned the full-color introduction to The Urantia Book. Outreach Committee provided Jesusonian’s original Intro Brochure and text for them to work from. Again, many of Gary’s amazing graphics were utilized in the new intro. The end result is a beautiful brochure that provides all Urantia organizations with an effective new tool for outreach efforts going forward. The Team also launched a simple webpage: www.UrantiaUnited.org. This site allows our joint outreach materials to have just one URL that leads to the four primary Urantia organizations. Outreach Committee has produced hundreds of these great brochures to hand out at our recent and upcoming outreach events.
Outreach Members Gary Tonge and Paula Thompson worked together on a script for the video “Big Questions” (ver abajo). Gary did the graphics and animation. Like all of Gary’s work, the results are enthralling. These beautiful and effective videos are intended to help anyone and everyone share the gift of revelation, so please, share them liberally. Gary and Paula also worked together on another great video, “Encouragement” (ver abajo). You can find all of Gary’s fantastic videos together on his YouTube channel or at his website, www.visionafar.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCFcdAVWN4&t=77s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9IeeX6k_8U
This is the kind of media outreach effort we hope to continue to develop and pursue going forward. The efficacy of this outreach is astounding. The Big Questions video has been viewed nearly 70,000 times since launching last November. We also created another great outreach video called Understanding The Caveman. It has been viewed 40,000 times since launching in June. The Fellowship’s resident journalist and videographer, Derek Samaras, was instrumental in pulling this effort together by enlisting the remarkable talents of JohnCarlo Pellicciotta (the animator) and Jeremy Daigle (sound consultant) and again, the amazing Gary Tonge. What a splendid effort from this highly creative team.
We’ve also enjoyed the stalwart efforts of Outreach members Lynn Goodwin and Thomas Orjala. Thomas has been exploring options at Hemp Festivals: at his recent event he placed 90 Urantia Books. Lynn is focusing on UFO and New Age expos. At the recent Contact in The Desert, a UFO conference, she added the names of 70 new and interested readers to our contact list in addition to selling dozens of books.
These outreach exhibits provide priceless opportunities to put a human face on the revelation and to make a personal contact with individuals from all walks of life. These events train volunteers in outreach like nothing else can, because they provide the rare opportunity to actually teach The Urantia Book and answer the sincere questions of real truth seekers. In the past 12 months, Thomas and Lynn together have distributed 126 soft cover Urantia Books and 66 hard cover books. It may not sound like a lot, but we should applaud them for the love and devotion that they (and their booth volunteers) put into each and every book they place into a truth seeker’s hands. Their efforts are considerable, not only in terms of being there to work an entire event but also in terms of the time and effort it takes before and after such an event, considering preliminary logistics, travel, setup and tear down, as well as follow-up. We owe them our heartfelt thanks!
Our newest Outreach Committee member is Sue Haskell. She has created a much needed document to help people start to read the revelation, called How To Read The Urantia Book. Sue has also written Ten Reasons Why New Age Teachers Need to Read The Urantia Book. Sue also worked with Teuvo Orjala on this feature for the UrantiaNow website: What On Earth Is Going On With Eclipses And The Urantia Book. We certainly look forward to working on more projects with Sue.
Finally, the radio show The Cosmic Citizen just celebrated its 11th year of weekly broadcasts based on, and inspired by, the amazing and wonderful teachings of The Urantia Book. This effort is sponsored and paid for by The Fellowship’s Outreach Committee. Kudos to the hosts and guests who bring these weekly episodes to life. Many thanks to Paula Thompson, Christilyn Biek Larson, Andre Radatus, Chuck
Thurston and Derek Samaras for giving many hours of time hosting the program.
The Fellowship’s Outreach Committee celebrates all evangels of the revelation who endeavor to share its amazingly deep and life changing teachings. If you have an idea for an outreach project, we want to hear from you! Please write to us in care of the Fellowship, at fellowship@urantiabook.org