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The Legacy ∴ Foundation for Human Progress“By making the truth cool, I believe we can accelerate the goal of planetary upliftment.” By his reckoning, Deadrick Baker has read The Urantia Book over 20 times – and he’s only 33 years old. But you won’t hear him “preaching to the Urantia Book choir” on his YouTube channel, which is dedicated to spreading the book’s teachings on mind-body-spirit progress. Deadrick’s approach is to speak truth in other people’s terms. And the main audience for his videos is the younger generation. “’Being cool’ is one of the most potent energies on Planet Earth, especially for the young generation. By making the Truth cool, I believe we can accelerate the goal of planetary mind-body-spirit progress,” he believes. Deadrick, a certified life coach, licensed pastor and rapper, is “marketing the Kingdom” by putting a diversity of content on social media that is intended to attract the interest of the young, and then lead them to his spiritual videos and his “mind-body-spirit” program. “How are we going to take this torch and pass it on to the young bloods,” he questioned during an interview with Paula Thompson on The Urantia Book Fellowship’s YouTube channel. “How do we translate the revelation to the young generation and to people off the street who have no clue what The Urantia Book is? “You can’t throw a 2,000 page book down people’s throats…you need to use their terminology.” His channel “The Legacy ∴ Foundation for Human Progress”, which received funding for software and equipment from the Second Miler Grant Program, is an attempt to bridge the gap between youth and the truths contained in The Urantia Book. A Young Urantia Book StudentDeadrick was only 14 when he found The Urantia Book: it was in a box of discarded second-hand books belonging to his friend’s dad. “I reached in without looking and the first book I grabbed was the UB. I read the back of the book and couldn’t believe my eyes.” Raised a Catholic, he had already been on a spiritual search for Truth since the age of 10. That was when he came to the conclusion that the Church “was not it”. He went on to explore numerous religions and spiritual paths, from Buddhism and the Kabbalah to metaphysics, theology and meditation. The book entered his life just as he was immersed in this exploration. His friend wasn’t interested: “I was forced to experience the Revelation on my own, and it’s been that way ever since, until I found the Urantia community.” He found the Fellowship at 30. In between, he had been trying to “spread the book”, but his experience was bittersweet. His father told him to “stop thinking about that stuff”, his friends thought he was crazy, his church group told him he needed to come back to Jesus, and his pastor uncle took away his copy of the book after he read it openly at the Pentecostal Church in which he had become a youth group leader. The silver lining was that he was learning to “rephrase the truths contained in the UB” and sharpen his ability to translate them into a form that would not alienate people. He decided to approach kingdom building in his own creative way. And for a long time was unaware there existed a community of readers just like him. Fellowship GrantHis discovery of the Fellowship led to a request for a grant that would support its mission of sharing the revelation, relying on social media and coaching to reach a wider audience with no previous exposure to the book. Deadrick’s YouTube channel now has over 500 subscribers and thousands of views for videos with titles such as The Art of Living, True Worship and Mind, Body & Spirit. He has also started a video podcast called The Cosmic Roadtrip where he inserts information from The Urantia Book into discussions that range from dreams to UFOs – without mentioning The Urantia Book. Deadrick was also the videographer for The Urantia Book Fellowship’s 2023 International Conference plenary sessions. The Urantia Book Fellowship would like to thank supporters of the Second Miler Grant Program for making possible Deadrick's project and all the others the program has funded since 2020. |
Learn more about the Second Miler Grant Program: Click here for details and application form. Read about some of the grant recipients' great projects:
Check out some of the other Urantia Book programs run by The Urantia Book Fellowhip.
Click here to make a donation to the Second Miler Grant Program or to The Urantia Book Fellowship. |
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