[tmtranscripts] Fwd: Abraham on the internet and newcomers

[Thea Hardy]

Hi Gang,

As I promised Chet, I did try to take a transmission on this topic. Here is the result. You will have to judge for yourselves. I did find it interesting, and saw a picture in my mind of what he meant. The degree of accuracy isn't something I can attest to - I simply took it as it came.
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Dear LinEL, or whomever, would you be willing to give a lesson on how to approach introducing newcomers online to the mission?

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Dear child, it is I, Abraham, who well knows the human way. There are many considerations to be taken to mind when you desire to reach out to others. This was true in my day, true when the apostles of our beloved Michael had to learn how to teach the gospel, and just as true in this day and age. In a sense, you have more challenges now because of the multiplicity of means of communication, yes. In my day, it was somewhat simpler. But human nature was much the same and this will always be your main need in the discernment as to the most effective means of introducing others to the forms of truth you know and love. In this, there are several challenges. People are not attracted to the same aspects of any presented truth. You know this from your explorations of how different people came to the Urantia book and engaged its mighty messages. Therefore, no one way will ever be a full and final solution. On your internet, with the use of material circuitry to make heart connections with your brothers and sisters afar, you have many options that you have not yet made use of. Because this technology is yet in its infancy, you have not learned to think in terms that will make it function at its best for your purposes. 

With your few lists you yet try to meet too many needs with too few tracks of approach. It is as if you were attempting to create a symphony utilizing only the trumpet, the flute and the timpani. You at once try to attain too much breadth from a single source, but fail to broaden your efforts to achieve this necessary wide expanse. Although it is still unwieldy, you need to structure your materials for outreach in forms that allows people to pick and choose from various options. For this lesson, I am speaking in your terminology but keep in mind that although you associate me with olden times, the technologies of the culture within which I now live make your world¹s methods the more primitive. I say to you to consider  a web site designed very specifically for outreach. Your already extant web sites still present information in an excessively linear text form without paying sufficient attention to other ways that information can be structured and presented. In this, you could do well to learn from those on your world who promote a variety of things, for however poor their motivations, they do know much about how to appeal to those they seek to reach. Therefore, if you learn art of creatively structuring of the presentation of information, you can offer diverse options that draw different individuals while yet achieving the breadth you need. 

Your using of the maillists has severe limitations for outreach, however much utility it has for your keeping your own conversations going, an important function. One failure is that because you serve multiple agendas, your efforts remain divided: for example, you cannot be as frank as you need to be among yourselves, because you have concerns for the image you project to those yet new. This is a problem on several levels, not the least your attitudes about what constitutes acceptability in modeling solutions for others. So the never-ending tension between the needs of self and others weaves its way into your choices, or your avoidance of choices, and you tend to spend too little time among yourselves in discussion of how best to proceed. You may think that such discussions are too lengthy and convoluted, but when you are beginners as you are, there can really not be too much of this. You are more prone to take premature action than to ponder, discuss and plan your strategies together.. Excesses of unilateral choices mix unhappily with excesses of exaggerated service motivations. 

You are like generals who cannot agree together on how to win the war because you do not even consider carefully, or sometimes even acknowledge, the battle at hand, and hence allow unconscious strategies to be carried out by yourselves and others behind your own backs, invisible to your own eyes. You cannot proceed as effectively as you would like without seeing that a problem, an opportunity,  does exist. Your current maillists are not the most effective tool for introduction to this mission, albeit it has been a boon to many. Its value lies in other areas; it is more effective as your way to be in touch with one another once you have already come to believe, do you see? As student teachers, you still have much training on how to present truth effectively, how to dramatize the thrills of reality in a world that has focussed mostly on the apparent thrills of unreality. Take the courage to work together to create yet better mechanisms for the promotion of truth, beauty and goodness. You still fall behind in your teamwork capabilities, hence the requirement of courage. Yet there are many exciting challenges ahead as you pursue such service adventures together. As some of you have already experienced, these will not always be easy, yet the hard-won cooperation yields fruits of great sweetness and effectiveness. Such joint efforts are worth all effort.

You know, as always, that we support all your efforts to share with your brothers and sisters the powerful and transforming truths you have been fortunate enough to receive. But there is always time for discussion of the most effective and palatable methods for doing this, keeping in mind that there is no single Œright" way to proceed. Join hands then, with one another, in the process of thinking through this on-going challenge. Discuss amongst yourselves the issues as to presentation, in tone, content, method, timing, all manner of things that teachers learning to teach must come to learn. Do not despair when this process seems long and messy and you fear that no common resolutions will ever be attained. Have faith, keep patient in your slow working through of processes that cannot yet be easy due to your lack of experience. And know always that we are here and available for your edification, that it is our supreme delight to help you find every way possible to teach your brothers and sisters that we are all children of the great God who tirelessly cares for us. That is all for the moment, but I do thank you for the opportunity and your willingness to attempt this message.

Abraham