© 2020 Ted Blaney
© 2020 The Urantia Book Fellowship
by Ted Blaney and Brent St. Denis
At large and small conferences we gather to study, to worship and to fellowship. In surveys following the international conferences 2014 and 2017 “Fellowship With Other Readers” was the first choice of responders to a series of questions about the value of the conference in “fostering your personal religious experience” and your “favorite parts of the conference.” We value the relationships we make and renew! “…mortal memory of relationships has cosmic value and will persist.” UB 112:5.22
In an effort by the Urantia Book Fellowship to find isolated Urantia Book readers (or be found by them) in local regions and to encourage and motivate them to gather in fellowship, worship, and study at least once a year for one to three days, the Fellowship is creating an Area Coordinator/ Field Worker (AC/FW) program - a simple, nonbureaucratic “finding and gathering” initiative. Our goal is to provide the infrastructure needed to support finding and gathering by instituting a grassroots AC/FW program along with a Fellowship commitment to till the soil within the regions.
Ted Blaney in Ohio and Kentucky, and Brent St. Denis in Ontario, Canada have demonstrated the power of local initiative when it is combined with reader enthusiasm. Over time many new and isolated UB readers were found and invited into existing or new study groups. When further supplemented by an invitation sent from the organizations’ offices to all readers in a geographic area it was easy to pull together quickly and inexpensively a meaningful social gathering. The participants were encouraged to bring a dish for a pot-luck meal, their musical instruments, their ideas and, if they desired, a short topical program they’d like to share. Afterwards, there was a lot of enthusiasm expressed and the desire to continue regular gatherings.
An ad hoc committee, chaired by Ted Blaney, has been formed to make recommendations to the General Council, including how to engage societies, find motivated AC/FWs, create a search process, and determine reader populated zones. The committee will propose an efficient, non-burdensome reporting regime, and consider how AC/FW might selforganize in mutual support to encourage gatherings and study groups and to keep the contact list current and growing. Contact Ted Blaney, tblaney@mykrcc.com if you have an interest in participating in the Area Coordinator/ Field Worker effort.
Isolation tends to exhaust the energy charge of the soul. Association with one’s fellows is essential to the renewal of the zest for life and is indispensable to the maintenance of the courage to fight those battles consequent upon the ascent to the higher levels of human living. Friendship enhances the joys and glorifies the triumphs of life. Loving and intimate human association tend to rob suffering of its sorrow and hardship of much of its bitterness. The presence of a friend enhances all beauty and exalts every goodness. By intelligent symbols man is able to quicken and enlarge the appreciative capacities of his friends. One of the crowning glories of human friendship is this power and possibility of the mutual stimulation of the imagination. Great spiritual power is inherent in the consciousness of wholehearted devotion to a common cause, mutual loyalty to a cosmic Deity. UB 160:2.8