Fellowship Home Page

"Everything nonspiritual in human experience, excepting personality, is a means to an end. Every true relationship of mortal man with other persons--human or divine--is an end in itself. And such fellowship with the personality of Deity is the eternal goal of universe ascension." (1228:3)

Much of what the members of the Charter Committee have learned from limited interaction together over the past year, the sense of the participants in the workshops we hosted last summer, and our many discussions regarding our specific work in the context of Urantia Brotherhood activities, is expressed in the quote above. While much of what we do is reactive (to the needs of groups working toward society status), looked at from a spiritual point of view, it is work which facilitates the coming together of God's children in a cooperative endeavor. In the rush of day-to-day activities, and even in the stream of Urantia Brotherhood related efforts, it is easy to forget that each person's conscious participation in the ascension plan is really the goal of our work. Societies are not ends, but rather, simply means to the very fellowship with God and the God in each other which is our real work.

At the same time, of course, there is a real and practical aspect to this work--the functional mechanism for organized cooperation and consistent, wise outreach is our Brotherhood organization. The Charter Committee plays a role here in developing a proper set of Society standards to aid in the maximization of commitment (to organizational responsibilities) and stability to insure the orderly growth of the building blocks of just, fair, and dimensional participation in our work on behalf of this revelation. But in the end, while the organized process aids in the reasoned resolution of problems, development of strategies to achieve wise goals, and cooperative synthesis of opposing, but relative points of view, yet, we are all just the Father's children getting to know him and each other better.

An update of committee work this year follows:

Urantia Society of San Fernando Valley. This is the name a dedicated group of fellow students of The Urantia Book has chosen for a society to-be which made initial application for society status this past August 21, 1983. During the required waiting period of one year before final application and chartering, this group has been hard at work on their constitution, having already submitted the resumes of their founding and charter members. Assuming that all proceeds on schedule, we should be adding a new active society to Brotherhood roles this fall.

2. Membership Pamphlet. As the result of our membership questionnaire, and the responses during our workshop this past summer, we are in the process of finalizing for presentation to the Executive Committee a pamphlet on the subject of membership in Urantia Brotherhood. This brief statement is designed to act as a stimulus for those persons or groups considering any form of membership in the Brotherhood organizations; we feel it extremely important that each person considering membership of any kind think about his/her motives for joining, the benefits/opportunities of membership, the responsibilities of membership, and a restatement of the essential differences between membership in our social Brotherhood versus the more important membership in the spiritual brotherhood.

3. Information Requests. In addition to Urantia Society of San Fernando Valley, we have had requests for information concerning the process of becoming chartered from:

Murfreesboro, TN Contact: Buddy Conley Bothell, WA Contact: Pat Bedell Belgium Contact: Marcel Cheruy

4. Constitutional Amendment. It is the Charter Committee's intention to present, pursuant to the support of the General Council this past June, 1982, a constitutional amendment to the Brotherhood Constitution, which would require that each delegate to the Triennial Delegate Assembly and each General Councilor shall have read The Urantia Book in its entirety.

My warmest thanks to the members of the Charter Committee who shall have accomplished much before this summer's meeting: Lucille Faw, Mary Lou Hales, Charles Olivea, David Renn, and Irene Sprunger.

Respectfully submitted,

David H. Elders
On Behalf of the Charter Committee