The Urantia Book Fellowship
Annual Report of the Interfaith Committee
July 2003

2003 has been a year of team building as well as action for the Interfaith Committee. We met several times this spring via conference calls to discuss the committee's immediate and long-range purpose and goals. After considering the past emphasis by the Committee on outreach to other major religious groups, we decided this year to focus our efforts on outreach to the Urantia Book community itself - an "intra-faith" approach to service. This decision was in response to the years-long breakdown of reader and organizational communication between members of the Foundation and the Fellowship. The Committee felt that by bringing to the community some of the communications tools already developed by other effective interfaith organizations, we could help empower individuals become more effective at building relationships and promoting harmony within the larger community of readers.

Because of this decision, the Committee is offering two workshops at the Summer Study Session that are geared toward this effort. We hope that these workshops will be the first step in an on-going effort to provide education about conflict resolution and productive dialogue among all readers of the Urantia Book. We hope to expand our efforts next year by collaborating with interested IUA members and offering workshops at conferences sponsored by both organizations.

The committee continues to recognize the importance of representing the Urantia Book and the religious movement it has inspired to the established world religions and interfaith organizations. We also recognize, however, that other religionists will not take the Urantia Revelation seriously until our organizations provide a positive example of inter-group harmony and unity of purpose. It is to this end that the Interfaith Committee is working in 2003.

Respectfully submitted,
Rebecca Kantor