Free courses and community
We're excited for you to join us...Together in Spiritual Growth!
Join the Waitlist for the Spring 2024 Session. Dates TBD ( February - May )
Adding your name and email address to this waitlist confirms that you will be contacted several weeks prior to the Orientation of our next course to be launched in the spring of 2024.
After facilitating two Progress Project courses, we decided the structure that has been developed would greatly benefit by an additional course specifically for the Progress Project Service Corps (PPSC). The first offering was spring 2022 for the alumni of the original courses. Our second PPSC train will be fall 2023.
You are invited to join with others for a season of spiritual growth.
The purpose of the Progress Project course is to deepen our personal relationships with God, share our inner lives with each other, and support each other in spiritual goals through intentional relationship. We take our name from an initiative that was developed by Urantia Book readers as a network of small groups focused on personal spiritual growth.
During the course, we meet for twelve sessions , generally 90 minutes a week in an online class, focusing on the arc of spiritual growth from inner connection to outer expression. Each class period will include time for worshipful communion, instruction from Angie and Aprilhelen, and breakout groups for study and personal reflection on the week’s theme.
In addition, all students will be expected to join a Triad: a group of three that meets outside of class to support and accompany each other in your desire for personal spiritual progress. These meetings are an additional 90 minutes a week and include worshipful communion, sharing of your inner life, and a time for study.
Lastly, all students will be asked to develop a personal, everyday practice of communion with God. We’ll invite you to journal about your experience as you go.
The Progress Project course is a deep-dive! You’re making a real commitment – to yourself, to your triad, and to God. As a result, we don’t have auditors for this course. Before registering, we invite you to reflect on whether the time is right for you to make such a commitment. We hope you’ll say yes!
Orientation Session and Commitment:
We will hold an orientation session two weeks before the start date and will also make a recording available to all who register. If you are considering the Progress Project course, be sure to attend this session or watch the recording.
At the orientation, we will provide key information that you will need as a student in the Progress Project course and give you a chance to ask questions. This will help you decide if the course is right for you. Afterwards, if you decide to join the course, we’ll ask you to complete a short online survey and make a commitment to undertake the entire twelve weeks. Sometimes the courses run longer that twelve weeks, as we honor major holidays.
Your commitment not only supports you in your personal progress, but the whole group in theirs. We’re all in this together...in spiritual growth!
This will be our third time hosting this course on the Urantia University Institute platform.
Our vision is to help the Progress Project pollinate across the Urantia movement and beyond, into the secular environment.
Testimonials
- This course has initiated a new dimension of spiritual growth for me! - Ann, USA
- The Progress Project is an enlightening adventure which inspires personal growth and connects us with other UB readers around the world. - Jane, Canada
- Being in a triad group was an impactful and valuable personal experience... - Bob, USA
- Such a great place to grow and serve and exchange with God-loving brothers and sisters!! - Manuela, Germany
- This is a course in deepening one's relationship with our Paradise Father and it delivers in spades...I have used some of their techniques to inwardly and upwardly reach, daily...so soul-satisfying!! - Monica, Canada
- The Progress Project has helped my spiritual growth more than anything I have ever done. I encourage everyone to participate in this wonderful program when they can. - Kurt, USA
Course Syllabus
Session 1: Trinitized Spiritual Growth
An overview of the Progress Project, the role of triads, and the universe pattern of the Trinity. Meet your triad for the first time!
Session 2: Sharing the Inner Life
On the importance of sharing your inner life with God, your triad, and the class.
Session 3: Connection with God
Explore techniques of inner spirit connection while being reminded of our many spirit helpers.
Session 4: Communion with God
Learn from others about their practices of communion and develop and deepen your own.
Session 5: The Practice
On patience, adaptation, and the power of free will as we continue our journey of spiritual discipline.
Session 6: Self-Awareness
Discover techniques and resources for cultivating self-awareness.
Session 7: Living on Purpose
On the art of spiritual living: cultivating daily habits and a rhythm of life.
Session 8: Gifts of God
On the gift of personality, the consecration of choice, and transforming through difficulties.
Session 9: Personality Progress
Begin to recognize your growing capacity to bear the fruits of the spirit.
Session 10: Serving God
On loving service and discovering your true voice and spiritual purpose.
Session 11: Transformation
On the growth of meanings and the realization of values in your life.
Session 12: Moving Forward
Celebrate our personal and collective progress and our visions for the future!
Progress Project Service Corps
Angie Thurston
Angie Thurston
Angie Thurston
I'm Angie Thurston, and I'll be one of your faculty members for this course. I was raised with the Urantia Book, and the part that always compelled me most was this idea of spiritual growth. I would read about "spiritual goals" and "growing closer to God" and I wanted to know how to do it! I also knew that I couldn't -- and didn't want to
I'm Angie Thurston, and I'll be one of your faculty members for this course. I was raised with the Urantia Book, and the part that always compelled me most was this idea of spiritual growth. I would read about "spiritual goals" and "growing closer to God" and I wanted to know how to do it! I also knew that I couldn't -- and didn't want to -- do it alone. Luckily, I wasn't the only one. The Progress Project was born from a small group of Urantia Book readers who all wanted to support and accompany each other in our spiritual growth. It has been a Godsend for me and I'm excited to share it with you.
My work in the world is all about the future of spiritual community. I am a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and the co-founder of Sacred Design Lab, a soul-centered research and development lab. With my mother, Claire Thurston, I lead a program called Inner Sourcing for young adults to connect with their souls.
I'll be joining you from Alexandria, VA, where I live with my husband Vipin and our cat Pepper.
Aprilhelen
Angie Thurston
Angie Thurston
Aloha! Aprilhelen here, facilitating this course from the Northwest Arkansas Ozarks, as we are all ’Together in Spiritual Growth!’ Being a second generation student of the Urantia Book, one of my passions has been the practice of integrating the techniques of the art of living prescribed by witnessing how the master teacher, Jesus, lived.
Through the past twenty-five years of sharing, with all ages, the eight-fold path of the art of therapeutic yoga and personal transformation, catering and nutrition education, horticulture and animal husbandry, I have been able to effectively expose these tools for others, so we may all up-step our addition of value to the progress of the whole.
My spiritual sister, Angie, and I have worked together for over a decade. Our shared experience on the playground of the Urantia Book movement has provided us many valuable leadership and service opportunities that laid the foundation from which the Progress Project and the Progress Project Service Corps have now emerged.
Kurt Cira
Angie Thurston
Steve Frith
Some awesome words will soon be here describing one of our dedicated Service Corps members!
Steve Frith
Angie Thurston
Steve Frith
Some awesome words will soon be here describing one of our dedicated Service Corps members!