Los Angeles was a unique and amazing weekend! Going into each Invitational, we all feel a little nervous. As a Committee we want to provide a fulfilling, rewarding experience for all the wonderful young people who take their time, energy, and money to come. We desire not only for their needs to be met but for their expectations of and connection to this community to have expanded by the end of the weekend. As usual, once we finally got in one room together, our worries vanished like lightning. We all felt blessed to be in the warm embrace of our friends.

So what was unique about this weekend? It was the first time the whole Committee had been at an Invitational together. We also had attendees who had never read the Urantia Book and a few who had just started. The range of experience with the Book meant we had an opportunity for an organic community introduction that ended with an outdoor study group at the gorgeous Huntington Gardens. It is our belief as a Committee that we should always have our doors open to any and all youth who desire to attend these events, even if they have never heard about the Urantia Book.

Our schedule in LA provided time to explore each of our personal relationships to the teachings, time to share as a group, and time with the local Society, UBLA, which generously hosted us for a lunch and gathering in the park. A narrative through line drove the conversations over the weekend: Action! Quickly it is becoming clear that this generation desires to “do” above all else. Though we all agree that the study of Urantia Teachings is our best tool for discovering our own personal paths to service, it is not the UB that lays out how to do this in actual action steps. We as Urantia youth must develop our own methodology for being of service to ourselves, our community, and the world. And let me tell you, there are some mind blowing ideas in the pipeline so stay tuned!

So we say thank you! Thank you for supporting the youth. Thank you for your faith in us.