© 2020 Sue Snider Seccombe
© 2020 The Urantia Book Fellowship
by Sue Snider Seccombe
With an eye toward progress and growth, the Urantia Book Fellowship created our ad hoc committee to finetune planning and clarify future opportunities and strategies. We completed 50 in-depth interviews over the summer with key participants in the Urantia Book reader community and are now conducting market research to learn more about the next wave of people who may discover the Urantia Book and how we can best prepare to serve them.
“Urantia is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment.” UB 195:9.2
¶ How We Serve Our Community
As an organization dedicated to socializing the teachings of the Urantia Book, community is where we walk our talk. Previous research has shown that our community gains a lot of satisfaction and growth through fellowship – the process of connecting and sharing with other readers through study groups, at conferences, retreats, social gatherings and Zoomathons – because it has been through this process of connecting and sharing that, for many, the teachings have become even more transformative; we see, better understand, and strive to live in new and higher ways.
The Fellowship is actively learning more about the differences in how people engage with the Urantia Book, and (maybe) with the community of Urantia Book readers. We have been applying a segmentation approach to identify and understand different audiences, both present and potential. The colored bands in this chart helped us begin to identify who these audiences might be and then to form hypotheses about their needs, questions, and if and how they might want to engage with the Fellowship.
¶ A New Hunger: Preparing for Organic Growth from Young Adults
Recent events have created levels of anxiety and distress that many have never experienced, and the toll on mental health is showing up in greater and greater numbers, especially among younger adults. A recent study (September, 2020) by the University of Chicago found that 25% of young adults (ages 18-34) say their mental health is “fair or poor,” where about half as many older adults (13%) put themselves into these same categories. Young adults were also more likely to be isolated and lonely, statistics that have been the norm for this generation for quite some time.
The spiritual needs of today’s young adults seem to be growing only more pressing. We are investigating ways to make the Fellowship more “findable” to young adults who are searching not just for a spiritual anchor, but for a community around it.
¶ Time for a Tune-Up
As we prepare to move forward, we are using the valuable insights from the in-depth interviews to offer recommendations about fine-tuning how the Fellowship functions. Broadly speaking, these recommendations fall into three categories:
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Focus on our core purpose
- Reduce distractions - We are proposing narrowing our Purpose so that it more closely aligns with what our interviews told us are the core competencies of the Fellowship, which we have summarized as this: “To connect people as brothers and sisters to share the truths of The Urantia Book teachings to promote our personal and spiritual growth.”
We are in a unique position to do more than just help others find the book but to find each other. When we connect there is potential for new and even transformative levels of growth as we demonstrate the teachings in our lives and relationships. As budget meetings are approaching, we must all ask ourselves if our tactics and programs are truly connecting back to our Purpose. - Build momentum - We need to have all the oars in the water rowing in the same direction. There are so many projects, efforts, initiatives, and works we would all like to complete for the revelation, but it will be difficult to gain momentum as an organization with a unified Purpose if we are pulling in too many directions, especially those purposes are outside of our core competencies of connecting with others to share and socialize the teachings of the Urantia Book…
- Reduce distractions - We are proposing narrowing our Purpose so that it more closely aligns with what our interviews told us are the core competencies of the Fellowship, which we have summarized as this: “To connect people as brothers and sisters to share the truths of The Urantia Book teachings to promote our personal and spiritual growth.”
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Amplify use of technology
- Target online presence - Today’s young adults are “digital natives;” they live on and in their smartphones and we need to be able to engage with them in their world. The Fellowship’s technology team is working on search engine optimization so that our resources appear online right where people are searching, as well as creating content for new readers. We will be recommending some specific projects to increase our digital connections and open new doors for sharing, questions and dialogue.
There are so many opportunities here, and we are grateful to have Jena Lassiter and Albert Einstein Lassiter on our committee, who both bring so much knowledge about technology to the table. Together with Richard Daunt, Barry Clark, Gary Tonge, and countless others who are creating a more sophisticated digital presence for the Fellowship, we are making progress. - Become a more responsive organization - As technology changes and as new ways of connection are made possible, the Fellowship will be able to adapt and respond more quickly.
- Target online presence - Today’s young adults are “digital natives;” they live on and in their smartphones and we need to be able to engage with them in their world. The Fellowship’s technology team is working on search engine optimization so that our resources appear online right where people are searching, as well as creating content for new readers. We will be recommending some specific projects to increase our digital connections and open new doors for sharing, questions and dialogue.
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Prepare for the next wave
- Simplify governance - We are investigating the smartest approach to how we are structured, make decisions, vote and engage with members and societies. The goal is to create a more agile decision-making body without losing valuable insights and opinions that come from discussion and debate. We are also exploring methods for how we can more regularly share with and hear from members, work with and support societies and engage with those curious about who we are and what we do.
- Fine-tune committee synergies - The way the world communicates has changed drastically since 1955 and we may need to shuffle ourselves around a bit to more closely align with the needs of those we serve with a consistent goal, message, and presence.
It’s been especially valuable to have Dan Amyx on our committee - his long tenure with the Fellowship, and his mental archives of “been there, done that,” have helped us move forward without reinventing the wheel. - Maximize our use of the Young Adult Survey - To guide the development of strategies, resources, approaches and messages in order to connect and share with the next wave of readers, we will deploy the insights from a new research study (see below) now being conducted by the Fellowship.
¶ Young Adult Survey
We are working on maximizing how the Fellowship fosters engagement, with both current and potential audience, so that we are all in a better position to respond to the next phase of interest in and spread of the revelation.
Dr. David Schlundt, the VP of the Fellowship and our committee’s resident research guru, has been serving a key role by spearheading a large survey of young adults about their attitudes and beliefs about spirituality, religion, worship, God, faith and values in the 21 st century.
The survey data were gathered in late June of 2020 through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a platform that allowed us to economically capture responses from 3,023 young adults who could opt-in to the survey and receive a small financial incentive. The respondent profile tended to follow the profile of the Amazon MTurk panel, which skews toward younger and more educated adults with full-time jobs.
Our sample of 3,023 young adults also has these additional characteristics:
- Male/Female split about 60/40
- 81% college graduates (54% bachelor’s, 27% post-grad+)
- Mix of ethnicities (60% Caucasian, 16% Black, 16% Asian, 4% Hispanic, 4% Other)
- Two-thirds of respondents from the US (67%), with the remaining third from 53 other countries
- 88% employed (67% work for someone else, 21% self-employed)
A full analysis is underway using statistical methods such as cluster analysis to identify groups with similar beliefs and attitudes, then compare these groups in order to understand their similarities and differences. The results will be used to explore unique opportunities for outreach and service with each audience.
Paper 114 says the Progress Angels “labor incessantly to make things what they ought to be.” What a comfort to know that the current churning of humankind is not in vain. The Progress Angels are at work in the Fellowship, too, laboring to make us what we should be, and we continually seek to be in tune with their guidance.
More to come as the work continues…
Organizational Guidance Committee
Daniel Amyx
Albert Einstein Lassiter
Jena Lassiter
Dr. David Schlundt
Sue Snider Seccombe, Chair