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The Urantia Book Fellowship's International Conference 2023 (IC23)


Monday, July 24–Friday, July 28, 2023

LIVING THE TEACHINGS

Oak Brook Hills Resort and Conference Center

3500 Midwest Rd, Oak Brook, Illinois (near Chicago)


Are you interested in presenting a workshop for IC23?

Workshops are two hours and are intended to be an interactive experience with a small group of conference attendees.

To Learn more about the workshops fill out our workshop proposal form

The Urantia Book Fellowship is delighted to be hosting the next international conference for Urantia Book readers, live and in-person, July 24-28, 2023, in Chicago, Illinois!

Please plan to join us for this wonderful (cosmic) family reunion.

The location, Oak Brook Hills Resort and Conference Center, is about a half hour from Chicago's two major airports (O'Hare/ORD and Midway/MDW) and offers comfy beds, a beautiful pool and golf course, and for one week next summer, will be home to hundreds of your closest friends.

This year’s theme beckons to us to go “all in” on the Urantia revelation, and explore the places within us where we have room to expand our potential contribution to the Supreme. While many of us have been reading, studying and talking about The Urantia Book, sometimes it’s the friendships, encouragement, inspiration and acceptance from our spiritual brothers and sisters that embolden us to “let go and let God.”

What a great line up! Our planning team is hard at work to bring you a program that is full and enriching, all in a newly renovated resort with indoor and outdoor pools, a golf course, and plenty of room to spread out. You can register now, or take the opportunity today to pre-register (reserve your place), which will also help us plan for capacity.


IC23 Children + Teen Program

We welcome you to bring all ages of the younger generations to join us in fun, education, and fellowship. Please, contact Aprilhelen, with any questions or volunteer commitments.  Email: Aprilhelen@UrantiaBook.org

Services will be provided by The Children + Teen Program planning team, in partnership with the Youth and Young Adults and Urantia Family Life committees.



International Conference 2023: “Living the Teachings: Heart, Mind and Soul” is designed to be family friendly. The Urantia Family Life (UFL) team, (Ruthie Wilde Wenger, Chair; Tony Finstad, Elder Chair) is pleased to announce plans for a meaningful, creative and fun-filled program for families. Activities will be guided by their mission to advocate for the value of the family and the home; and to support parents and children in their endeavor to grow Godward and apply the teaching of the fifth epochal revelation in daily life.

In coordination with the Children + Teen Program which will provide a variety of experiences for the children so that parents may attend workshops, the UFL team is curating a workshop series geared toward parents and all people interested in family life, to include focuses on marriage, parenting, and religious culture. Additionally, the UFL team will be organizing various social gatherings designed to foster engagement between parents, and to cultivate a stronger family life community within the readership of the Urantia Book community at large.

The Chicago Oak Brook Hills Resort and Conference Center is close to O’Hare and Midway Airports. It has clean comfortable rooms, good food, an eighteen-hole championship golf course, a fully equipped gym, acres of lovely landscaped grounds, and indoor and outdoor pools. The family of God is central to The Urantia Book and we’d be pleased to make family life central to International Conference 2023. We hope you plan to bring your family to International Conference 2023 for a spiritually enriching summer vacation.

Memories of International Conferences

I’m really happy there’s an International Conference (IC) this summer. It’s been six years since the last Fellowship IC, and that’s too long!!! I’ve attended every International Conference since my first one in 1974 – almost 50 years ago. Often the atmosphere was so inspiring that I remember feeling that this must be what the mansion worlds are like! Everyone was friendly and engaging, the talks and workshops were compelling, the children roamed freely among strangers, no one locked doors, and at each gathering I made new lifelong friends who became family.

For me the best part of conferences was meeting new people. I felt like I got to know God better with each person I got to know. What an opportunity to meet people from all over the world. And how amazing to become part of a worldwide family!

Through the years conferences have grown to include pre-conference retreats, a pre-breakfast and pre-dinner worshipful meditation room, a large variety of interactive workshops, music, art galleries, skits, a gala social and guided local interest trips. You never know what additional treats are in store when you attend an International Conference. In addition to participating fully in worship, workshop and social activities, you might find time to experience local color. I took the Architectural Boat Tour on the Chicago River one year and a downhill mountain bike ride and heart-stopping raft trip another time at a conference in Colorado.

When my husband, Steve, and I came to our first conference, Paul Snider, a father of seven, was president of the Fellowship.  A loving and devoted father, Paul had a profound understanding of the value of family in The Urantia Book and he encouraged families to bring their children. In the years that followed, my son was one of the fortunate children who enjoyed socializing with each other while the grownups studied. At several of the conferences a highlight for the kids (and adults, too) was the Jerusalem Marketplace in which the children dressed as first century citizens, apostles, evangelists and Romans, and experienced life as in the times of Jesus. I remember being asked for “alms for the poor” at the marketplace entrance one time as I walked in.

For me and my family, attending an IC has always proven to be worth the expense.  What could be worth more than an extended time sharing your life in the spirit with fellow believers? And this year at the Hilton Oak Brook Hills Resort and Conference Center near Chicago, in addition to a wonderful program there is a variety of fantastic leisure amenities, including a 24-hour fitness center, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball and volleyball facilities, a games room and billiard tables, and an 18-hole championship golf course. It’s the dream vacation! If you’re a family with children, a devoted group of readers has planned an engaging, inspiring, fun-filled program for kids ages 0 to 18, and has secured the financing to offer this Children's Program free of charge to participating parents.

I urge you to take a look at the conference information on the Fellowship’s website and plan to join me and hundreds of God-loving like-minded friends for “Living the Teachings: Heart, Mind, and Soul” as we learn how to take the words off the pages of The Urantia Book and into our lives. There may still be time for you to submit a workshop proposal, and certainly to volunteer to help out. I hope to see many of you (my old friends) at IC23 this summer, and if I haven’t met you yet, I sure would like to.

Sincerely,

Bobbie Dreier

General Counselor

Jesus’ Beatitudes in Practice: A Pre-conference Retreat at IC23


The Beatitudes furnish the most extraordinary portal into a new vision of the spiritual potential of our present life and the actuality of our future morontia life. Based on faith and love, the Beatitudes reveal that even now, we can transfer the seat of our identity from our mortal minds to our morontial souls and begin a new way of living as we manifest the gift of our divine personality.

Join brothers and sisters in a circle of trust as we explore accessible practices related to each of the Beatitudes.  We’ll share insights and experiences to help each other choose these attitudes in every moment and relationship of our lives as a spontaneous and natural expression of our evolving character.

The retreat begins after dinner (included) on Sunday, July 23rd at 7 PM. It will conclude at 2 PM prior to the opening of IC23 registration on Monday, July 24th . Attendance is limited to 22 participants so be sure to register early to ensure your space!


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