Urantia Association and Urantia Foundation Meet at 533 in Chicago

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By Chris Wood, president, Urantia Association, Wisconsin, United States

Editor’s Note: Urantia Foundation is pledged to work with individuals and reader groups who want to spread The Urantia Book and its teachings in the world. To that end, Urantia Association invited us to participate in a planning session between several of their leaders and the trustees the day before our January board meeting. The meeting left us feeling inspired about working together to serve the revelation. The trustees thank the Association for instigating the day-long meeting and for their leadership on a global scale. We are committed to developing the same kind of cooperative working relationships with organizations committed to spreading the teachings. A house united can change the world. “A city set upon a hill cannot be hidden. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and be led to glorify your Father who is in heaven.” 140:3.13 (1570.14)

Urantia Association and Urantia Foundation have enjoyed a close relationship for more than twenty years. We co-sponsor programs across the globe from conferences to book placements, but since the majority of operations, projects, and goals of each organization are operated independently, it is important from time to time for our leaders to gather to update each other on the progress each has experienced. One such meeting occurred in January, hosted by Urantia Foundation at its headquarters, 533 W. Diversey Parkway in Chicago.

We, the Association, delighted in hearing about the ongoing progress and challenges of the Foundation. Trustee Marilynn Kulieke provided a presentation on the life cycle of any given translation and the never-ending decades of work and effort each translation demands. Indeed, it is heartening to hear the Foundation is planning for many years down the road for these translation projects and other programs to be passed to the next generation.

Another promising topic of our January meeting was the current focus of the Association’s International Service Board on the African continent. Our attention is on serving new and developing Urantia communities in Africa. As a decentralized global organization, Urantia Association is more familiar with the social growth of the Urantia teachings, and we were able to provide the Foundation with some boots-on-the-ground perspective. The seven committee chairs of our International Service Board hail from seven different countries on five continents and collectively speak seven languages. They were each able to provide reports and perspectives on how the number of organized Urantia communities has ballooned across the world with multiple new National Associations joining the International Representative Council each year. This growth has led to the formation of continental working groups, with Latin America and Europe rapidly evolving into educational and cultural centers of influence for Urantia Association. Hence, these groups have allowed our attention to turn to developing Urantia communities with current focus on the African continent.

Also in the January meeting, the Association formally invited the Foundation to attend numerous international events. Foundation staff and board members are always encouraged to attend Association conferences. In the past this might have meant one conference every two or three years, but with our growth, so too the number of conferences to serve Urantia believers has been growing. That said, we used this meeting to extend formal invitations to the Foundation to attend our upcoming events including the International Conference in April 2018 in Amsterdam, and continental conferences in Africa (Accra, Ghana, April 2018), Latin America (Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 2018), North America (Nashville, United States, 2019), and Europe (Tallinn, Estonia, 2019). We were also able to provide sneak peeks at exciting events in 2020 and 2021, which will be publicly announced in the coming months.

Finally, the meeting brought focus to the future and its demands. The Association requires a constant flow of dedicated volunteers at the local, national, continental, and international levels. Both organizations have faith that, with focused effort and outreach, the growing Urantia community will provide wise and big-hearted leadership for generations. And those leaders will ensure that our two organizations grow and evolve to serve this revelation.