Revelation Infrastructure, Part II

First order of business: an open and friendly debate about goals, audiences, and methods, led by the Spirit of Truth—and only then spend the surplus.

Paid staff can be a great thing. I experienced that in my own business back in the day. And, by the way, the Urantia Foundation has three full-timers now, so I stand corrected; Brad Garner has been IT director for a few years, and Lisa Crawford went full-time last month with multiple duties. All well and good. But there’s more to consider, more at stake than just hiring high-functioning employees. Which is why I’m hosting an online summit of sorts on the evening of Wednesday February 11, sponsored by Rodan Institute—details to come. On February 11 exactly 102 years ago, dear Machiventa first announced the FER to the Contact Commission, amid the mahogany walls of 533 Diversity.

Yes, efficient operations are a plus, but we don’t want to get caught doing the wrong things with more efficiency. Spending down the $20m surplus on professional staff is a bad idea if they’re implementing a worthless plan. You don’t want to splurge if you don’t have the right goals, the correct target audience, the best methods, and ways to measure outcomes. In other words, efficiency is not the same thing as effectiveness. Until we get a handle on such distinctions, the prudent thing for a gridlocked movement might well be to hold the money in trust—and meanwhile have an open and friendly public debate that begins now. So please pencil in the Feb 11 discussion and read on.

What can be done effectively with millions of dollars?

My friend Marilynn Kulieke, vice president of Urantia Foundation, posed a good question a week ago. In an open-hearted way, she asked me: what I would do with the surplus millions I crowed about in my last post. I stumbled around with a few ideas, but I’ve got a better handle now. I also had illuminating discussions with other veteran colleagues in the last few days, which helped retune me to the spirit of truth.

What follows are five suggestions to help fuel a community-wide debate, still tentative. Some of these would require, for the first time, professional marketing staff in our organizations who would work with outside consultants.

These ideas below are offered in the humorous spirit of James Carville, who helped Bill Clinton win the presidency with the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

1. It’s the gospel, stupid! What this really means is: foster the cosmic religion of the future based on the updated gospel of Jesus. By coincidence, this vaunted “future” is here, now—in the form of young people. When I say “cosmic religion,” I also mean that that which is “cosmic” is also here, now—in the form of the extraterrestrial and angelic presence knocking on our doors. Note well: gospel ministry and missions are not the same thing as disseminating a book and hosting study groups, which are secondary but important.

2. Look to Christianity, for Chrissake! I don’t mean to be impertinent. But mere Christianity is the largest religion on Urantia. Word on the street is that they follow the same Christ we do. Not only that, but for twenty centuries they’ve tried every imaginable form of innovation in governance, liturgy, ministry, interpretation, evangelism, theology, music—all inspired by the same Holy Spirit that inspires us. Lots to learn and much to choose from as we foster a Christ-centered religion based on new revelation, humbly building on the lessons of the last epochal revelation.

3. Create community, Lucy! We need young ministers and pastors and healers and theologians and songwriters who will grow real worship communities from the ground up, in part perhaps following Rodan’s ideas. By this I mean face-to-face prayer and service pods, centers of healthy religious socialization for all ages, as well as heartful meditation groups—all supported by digital tools. And out of this, the Spirit will produce fervent evangelists, leaders, and apostles who will go out and turn everything else around in the Urantia movement. But young people won’t rise to the occasion to do these great things if we don’t recruit them, train them, fund them well, and love them. We can afford to start that right now.

4. Do the branding, brother! A massive branding campaign could be launched right away. It should be led by an outside branding firm whose work is overseen by our own in-house marketing experts. We can afford this too! Such a campaign should be done for the sake of name recognition—for starters. It will feature intriguing slogans, inspiring imagery, and maybe celebrity endorsements. Suggested goals:
• Every Christian preacher in the land should have at least heard the name of the revelation and know it has a new biography of Jesus.
• Honest Christians should know they their beloved gospel is updated in Part IV, and let the controversy begin.
• Educated people should know that “Urantia” is the name of our planet and that there are billions of other inhabited worlds.
• Visionaries promoting the UB should no longer be instantly marginalized because no one in their community has heard of it!

5. It requires unity, dummy! The major existing Urantia organizations are culturally different and serve varied constituencies in our movement. Perhaps the best way forward is a “revelation federation” where all stakeholders have a seat at the table, so that efforts are not duplicated and ideas are cross-fertilized.

What else would you add? I tried to get this to seven items, so we need to fill in at least two more. Any suggestions? Meanwhile, stay tuned for details on the upcoming summit.