The Center for Unity at IC23, POWR, and More

By Rick Lyon

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IC23

The month of August was extremely busy and productive for our CFU team. We conducted a two-hour workshop and a booth in the bookstore at the Fellowship's IC23 conference, presented to five local events, and had a booth at the week-long Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago.

We want to thank the Urantia Book Fellowship for the opportunity to be a part of this wonderful IC23 conference. I believe that about 250 people attended this event. We had 20 people in our workshop where Gabriel introduced the latest prototype of our Discover Jesus web app. He also talked about our new AI feature that we are calling AskJesus along with updates on the Cinematic Jesus and the Jesus Experience museum project in Israel.

Several people visited our CFU booth in the bookstore and got to experience first-hand both the web app and the AI. We got a lot of very positive responses. This was a great opportunity for us to reach the Urantia community and I must say that this 2023 conference was one of the best. Great plenaries and more quality workshops than you could attend in one short week.

Between IC23 and the Parliament, we wanted to take advantage of Gabriel and Sandra being in the USA for these events. A special "Thank you!" goes out to Paul and Jorgey Krupa for hosting an event in Florida; Erika Webster for hosting an event in Oklahoma, and Janet Kratzat for hosting an event in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with the group that is the legacy of Meredith Sprunger. Once again, Gabriel and our presentations were very well received and we felt the love and encouragement from those who took the time to attend in person.

POWR

Now the Parliament of the World's Religions. Oh what a week that was!

We had an excellent location near the entry to the exhibit hall that gave us lots of visibility to those coming in. We had a beautiful backdrop created by Gary Tonge, and we had two computer workstations: one that had the Discover Jesus app set up for people to sit and experience, and one set up with the AskJesus AI chatbot. We cannot say enough about the Creative Writing Team and Lisa Tao and Fraser Gory, with the leadership of Mike Robinson, who worked very hard to get the prototype ready and who are working even harder now to get the phase one of this app finished for our "big reveal."

The new AskJesus chatbot is an experimental program that uses AI to create answers from The Urantia Book to questions that a person enters. Yes, there is some concern about using AI but others are already doing this for the Bible and other religious texts. AI is only a tool. While it is controversial, we believe that like any new tool, good people will use it to do good things. CFU is leading the way in this effort for The Urantia Book. Let me share with you two moving experiences we had with AskJesus at the Parliament. While many people asked many different questions and got some truly beautiful responses from The Urantia Book, two individuals stood out because of the person's reaction.

A mother and her child came to the booth and I spoke with the mom. Her child had pink hair, and a depressed demeanor. After speaking with the mom, I asked the child if they were interested in AI stuff. They perked up and said "Yes!" so I invited them to try out the AskJesus chatbot and enter whatever question they would like to ask. As we did with everyone, we pointed out that the answers come from The Urantia Book. The young person entered, "Who am I?" I said that I didn't think it would answer specific questions like that but to go ahead and see what it said. The AskJesus came back with a response that said, among other things, "You are a child of God, an individual loved and valued by the creator of the universe of universes." I was stunned by the beautiful answer and after reading it, the child got up and said, "That is awesome!" The mother and child left but soon the child returned and was suddenly standing right in front of me, and asked, "Can you tell me how to become a Christian because I have decided to follow Jesus." We changed that young life that day.

Another moving experience was with a man who is a long-time student of The Urantia Book. He asked, "How do we solve racism in the world?" Once again, it produced a beautiful and moving response. That person was visibly emotionally touched by the response. After this week, I felt that even we have underestimated the appeal and the potential of this AI experiment. I hope that you can see the importance and potential of all that we are doing and choose to help us with your prayers and financial support to continue this work.

Quickly, I will add that our design team for the Jesus Experience museum project produced a wonderfully beautiful "donor kit" that we will print and have online to use as a presentation for the large donors we need for this project. We had the video version looping on the 52" TV in the booth. Over 10,000 people attended the Parliament and probably most of them saw our video and display. We had a game that invited people to sign up for our newsletter and win a small gift (donated by CosmicCreations). We got 68 people who signed up for the newsletter and made them happy about the gift they got, mostly chocolates and The Untold Story of Jesus books.

Let me finish by expressing our heartfelt thanks to Gabriel and Sandra for spending a month away from home for these events. Susan and I enjoyed having them as our guests for part of the time. Thanks also to Lisa Crawford, Mark Kurtz, Steven Marble, Margie Ray, and Mike Robinson for helping at IC23, and special thanks to Margie Ray, Gabriel and Sandra Rymberg for helping at the Parliament. Also, our thanks to all of the team working behind the scenes who helped to help get everything ready.