Experiential education and
the power of teamwork
Here is a taste of what The Urantia Book has to say about experiential education.
“This is the keynote of the whole [Nebadon] educational system: character acquired by enlightened experience. The teachers provide the enlightenment; the universe station and the ascender’s status afford the opportunity for experience; the wise utilization of these two augments character.”(37:6.3/412.3)
A question to ponder. In order to augment character, how shall we wisely utilize the enlightenmentprovided by teachers, both superhuman and human—together with the opportunity for experiencethat we have because of our location on this world and our level of growth?
The wide-ranging and practical character of experiential education may be observed through a review of experiential education as directed by the Planetary Prince’s staff (50:4/575), by Adam and Eve (74:7/835), and in the advanced civilization on a neighboring planet (72:4/812). Consider also how Jesus trained the first six apostles for four months prior to beginning their experiential training. The other apostles received a one-week review of that instruction prior to their experiential training. Then they began with person-to-person ministry before moving into public speaking. And Peter’s school of prophets “was conducted on the plan of learning and doing. What the students learned during the forenoon they taught to the assembly by the seaside during the afternoon. After supper they informally discussed both the learning of the forenoon and the teaching of the afternoon.” (148:1/1657)
Given the demands of experiential education, we do well to consider how can teamwork multiply our effectiveness.
43:8.11 (494.10) Intellectually, socially, and spiritually two moral creatures do not merely double their personal potentials of universe achievement by partnership technique; they more nearly quadruple their attainment and accomplishment possibilities.
(1477.1) 133:5.6 Mathematics asserts that, if one person stands for a certain unit of intellectual and moral value, ten persons would stand for ten times this value. But in dealing with human personality it would be nearer the truth to say that such a personality association is a sum equal to the square of the number of personalities concerned in the equation rather than the simple arithmetical sum. A social group of human beings in co-ordinated working harmony stands for a force far greater than the simple sum of its parts.
Question. What does the phrase “coordinated working harmony” imply for the leader(s) and the team-member(s)?
A partnership or group may be formed to pursue a particular growth goal; or it may be formed to nurture the diverse projects of individual members.
How to select a project for experiential education
In selecting a growth project, often the first impulse is to choose a topic that builds on one’s strength and interests—continuing to neglect a weakness, non-strength, or not-yet strength. But growth takes time, both in an individual or a planet, because of the laws of sequence.
65:8.6 (740.2) When physical conditions are ripe, sudden mental evolutions may take place; when mind status is propitious, sudden spiritual transformations may occur; when spiritual values receive proper recognition, then cosmic meanings become discernible, and increasingly the personality is released from the handicaps of time and delivered from the limitations of space.
Consider the sequence of dimensions of human life focused on in the mansion worlds.
47:3.8 (533.6) Almost the entire experience of mansion world number one pertains to deficiency ministry. Survivors arriving on this first of the detention spheres present so many and such varied defects of creature character and deficiencies of mortal experience that the major activities of the realm are occupied with the correction and cure of these manifold legacies of the life in the flesh . . . .
47:4.7 (535.3) Biological deficiencies were largely made up on the first mansion world. There defects in planetary experiences pertaining to sex life, family association, and parental function were either corrected or were projected for future rectification . . . .
47:4.8 (535.4) Mansonia number two more specifically provides for the removal of all phases of intellectual conflict and for the cure of all varieties of mental disharmony. The effort to master the significance of morontia mota, begun on the first mansion world, is here more earnestly continued.
47:5.3 (536.1) Mansonia the third is a world of great personal and social achievement for all who have not made the equivalent of these circles of culture prior to release from the flesh on the mortal nativity worlds. On this sphere more positive educational work is begun. . . . The chief purpose of this training is to enhance the understanding of the correlation of morontia mota and mortal logic, the co-ordination of morontia mota and human philosophy. Surviving mortals now gain practical insight into true metaphysics. This is the real introduction to the intelligent comprehension of cosmic meanings and universe interrelationships. The culture of the third mansion world partakes of the nature of the postbestowal Son age of a normal inhabited planet.
48:5.8 (551.3) One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking. The mansonia life early teaches the young morontia pupils that postponement is in no sense avoidance. After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.
Jesus gave projects--or, more properly--assignments to each of his eleven loyal apostles in his final admonitions and warnings (181:2, 1955-62). [Admonition means counsel or advice, gentle reproof, instruction in duties, caution, direction.]
· Jesus instructed John how to build on the progress that he had already achieved in the matter of transforming his strong-minded intolerance to love: “Dedicate your life to teaching your brethren how to love one another, even as I have loved you.”
· To Simon Zelotes, the project was given as a ministry to his great weakness in an exhortation that was realistic and reassuring: “Dedicate your life, Simon, to showing how acceptably mortal man may fulfill my injunction concerning the simultaneous recognition of temporal duty to civil powers and spiritual service in the brotherhood of the kingdom.”
· To Matthew, he clarified his charge to proclaim the gospel that “faith-quickened mortals are the sons of God,” and then he gave Matthew a project that built upon his experience of having been a despised tax-gatherer: “Dedicate your whole future life service to showing all men that God is no respecter of persons; that, in the sight of God and in the fellowship of the kingdom, all men are equal, all believers are the sons of God.”
· To James, Jesus gave a project that pointed out several virtues that he needed to acquire, as focused in this primary mission: “Dedicate your life to the demonstration of that combined human affection and divine dignity of the God-knowing and Son-believing disciple.”
· Andrew Jesus released from formal leadership of the apostles, but gave him this charge, based uponan urgently needed project need that Andrew was well qualified to work on: “In all matters temporal and spiritual, do your utmost to promote peace and harmony among the various groups of sincere gospel believers. Dedicate the remainder of your life to promoting the practical aspects of brotherly love among your brethren.”
· To the Alpheus twins Jesus spoke with special compassion: “Dedicate your lives to the enhancement of commonplace toil. . . . To him who is God-knowing, there is no such thing as common labor or secular toil. . . . Continue you daily work as those who wait upon God and serve while they wait.” This project is especially important because the other projects in this series are based primarily on the individual’s future work for the kingdom, whereas many of us today have lives that are properly focused primarily on other goals in study, career, or retirement.
· To Philip Jesus gave a project that precisely called him to overcome his main weakness as concerned the kingdom and to replace that by the corresponding strength: “When you are blessed with spiritual vision, go forth to your work, dedicating your life to the cause of leading mankind to search for God and to seek eternal realities with the eye of spiritual faith and not with the eyes of the material mind.”
· Jesus gave Nathaniel the project of overcoming his great weakness, but Jesus realized that Nathaniel might fail in the short-term, and so gave him a second project: “If you would learn to work with your brethren, you might accomplish more permanent things, but if you find yourself going off in quest of those who think as you do, in that event dedicate your life to proving that the God-knowing disciple can become a kingdom builder even when alone in the world and wholly isolated from his fellow believers.”
· To Thomas Jesus gave the project of replacing his great kingdom weakness with the corresponding strength: “Dedicate your life to the great work of showing how the critical material mind of man can triumph over the inertia of intellectual doubting when faced by the demonstration of the manifestation of living truth as it operates in the experience of spirit-born men and women who yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives, and who love one another, even as I have loved you.”
· Jesus admonished Peter to replace his great vice with the corresponding virtue. He told Peter, who tended to speak thoughtlessly, to think before speaking. He told Peter that he needed to really learn a lesson that would come after succumbing to doubts and stumbling; then, he told Peter, “you should strengthen your brethren and go on living a life dedicated to preaching this gospel, though you may fall into prison and, perhaps, follow me in paying the supreme price of loving service in the building of the Father’s kingdom.”
Clearly, Jesus does not follow any simple formula for creating a project. Nevertheless, another approach to discerning the will of God for your growth in this stage of your life is—in communion with Jesus—to create a statement representing what you believe Jesus might say to you. We can ask: What is my great weakness or combination of weaknesses? What corresponding strength or combination of strengths can I achieve in God and proclaim by my life? What strength of mine is emerging that I can develop further? What have I suffered that has taught me a lesson that my life can proclaim to others? What planetary need am I especially qualified to serve? How can I do the ordinary material work of life in a way that reveals divine sonship with God?
Want more ideas about fashioning a growth project?
Grow up with Jesus by studying his growth stage by stage, and then doing the activities that enable you to make comparable achievements.
Seek the wisdom to discern your project in prayer and communion. And perhaps in conversation with a person who is experienced in helping others to shape their projects, or someone you trust who knows you well and can discern (better than most) your growth needs and capacities for service.
Sometimes the best project is simply to face the main difficulty in one’s present life. To overcome difficulties often requires us to grow in ways that are not obvious from the outset. From the end of his later childhood through the two crucial years prior to adolescence, the human Jesus wrestled to reconcile from day to day the two duties in tension: be true to your highest convictions of truth and righteousness, and honor your parents, for they have given you life and the nurture thereof. During those years of struggle, Jesus “achieved the satisfaction of effecting an increasingly harmonious blending of personal convictions and family obligations into a masterful concept of group solidarity based upon loyalty, fairness, tolerance, and love.” (124:4.9/1372.6)
The Preface to Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness includes a description of a method for experiential education. This method invited the student to select the number one, “front-burner” growth issue—for example, the “pet evil” as described in The Urantia Book, or the most challenging relationship or situation in the student’s life—and then to find creative ways to apply a broadly appealing idea from the philosophy or religious tradition being studied in class to that front-burner issue. Results of that method were very gratifying, experiential projects can also be fashioned in other ways.
As of July 2018, I am working with a growth group which is supporting diverse projects. Partly because projects change over time, I have mentioned more than one project for some individuals.
· Improve decision-making in the light of the conditions of effective prayer
· Personal strengthening relative to the demands of the current stage of a career
· Sustaining spiritual priorities as success opens new doors and the schedule becomes full
· Grow in courage to speak forth in groups, not just about non-personal “spirituality”, but about the relationship with God
· Acquire the qualities (especially in the area of contemplative spirituality) needed to be an effective gospel messenger
· Respond to growth needs as they arise in daily life
· Enhance patience, especially late in the day
· Joy-finding
· Processing grief
· Integrate philosophical and spiritual functioning with urgent “lower” material and social priorities
· Abide in God and strengthen integrity
· Live—and prepare to teach—the new philosophy of truth, beauty, and goodness
· Complement the interest in worship with growth in the practical realization of the brotherhood of man
· Learn to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love the neighbor in the light of lessons learned from all six levels of interpretation of the golden rule
This group are being asked to do their specific projects in a way that integrates at least to some degree each of the seven components of the philosophy of living: the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience; beauty in nature and the arts; and goodness in morality and character (2:7.7/43.3).
Revised 7.25.18